"Glengarry Glen Ross' in NY revival

"Always. Be. Closing."

That mantra is invoked repeatedly in the ferocious Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's unforgiving play about American business ethics and morality (or rather the lack thereof) in the 1980s.

Even now, as the play marks its 30th anniversary, Mamet's eviscerating view of the dog-eat-dog world of real estate feels newer and truer than ever.

Glengarry portrays a harrowing group of men struggling in a cutthroat business where only the strong— or, more accurately, the ruthless— survive. And Mamet raises the definition of "ruthless" to new levels. By comparison, Willy Loman's empty world seems safe and cozy.

Destroyed by the system

Yet watching Glengarry this time around, I was struck by Arthur Miller's legacy as it lives on in Mamet's work. Mamet's doomed salesman Shelly Levene was to the 1980s what Miller's doomed salesman Willy Loman was to the 1940s. In the eyes of both Miller and Mamet, both men are destroyed by a corrupt and inhumane system called American business, which turns ordinary decent men into criminals.

"You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away," Willy memorably cried out, on his way down in Death of a Salesman. "A man is not a piece of fruit!"

That sounds a lot like Mamet's Shelly Levene. Glengarry takes place over 24 gloomy hours in a seedy real estate firm in some unnamed American city.

As the curtain opens, Shelly Levene, a down-and-out salesman ground into wreckage by the years (Al Pacino, in a pitch-perfect performance), sits with his officer manager, John, in a grungy Chinese restaurant, across from the shabby office where they do their dark deals. Shelly begs his manager for leads so that he can sell shadow property (in Florida? Arizona?), get his name on the firm's "board" and win a Cadillac. (Second prize: a set of steak knives. Third prize: "You're fired.")

Worthless leads

But the leads that the pitiless John doles out in stingy twos and threes are worthless. John has been instructed by the "downtown bosses," Mitch and Murray (phantoms who never appear but whose dark presence hovers constantly) to withhold the golden Glengarry leads and save them for proven "closers."

Shelly and his fellow-losers Dave and George are doomed from the start. Only Ricky Roma, a slick operator who will stop at nothing to make a sale (we see it happen in cold blood), holds any hope of winning the prize.

Act II takes place in the office itself— now a crime scene. Someone has broken in and stolen the Glengarry leads. What happens, as the world of these marked men comes crashing down around them, is the stuff of American tragedy.

Pacino's shoulders

Daniel Sullivan deftly directs a crack cast of desperados running a rat race that can only end in disaster. Pacino's Shelly "the Machine" Levene is the portrait of failure. With his shoulders slumped from years of humiliation, with his craggy face and cavernous cheeks, Pacino shambles around the stage like a pathetic Paggliaci dancing his last desperate dance.

In a final attempt at the brass ring, he describes an $82,000 property sale he's just consummated. "Put my name on the board!" he cries through a torrent of exultant f-words. His hollow eyes shine, his pale hands flap wildly.

When John coldly reveals that the supposed purchasers are a laughingstock and their check is worthless, Pacino turns as ashen as his shabby suit and disintegrates into dust before our eyes.

Snake's survival

In contrast, Bobby Cannavale's serpentine Ricky Roma slithers through the carnage like a rattlesnake, and survives, with his brilliantly greased hair slicked back and his shining suit unruffled and intact.

The other cast members"“ including David Harbour as the heartless office manager ("I follow orders") and Richard Schiff as the loser George ("I can't close, I can't close!")"“ round out a seamless ensemble of Mamet's marked men.

Unfinished phrases

The cast speaks Mamet's fiery phrases fluently, catching the cadences and the workplace patois with ease. Expletives roll off their tongues, as do repetitions like "you"“ you"“ you—" (set forth precisely in the script). Unfinished phrases hang in the air as the salesmen interrupt each other's sentences. And of course there's the ubiquitous f-word, peppering every sentence as frequently as the word "and."

The cumulative effect is a kind of hard, hypnotic eloquence. This dramatic language has been mastered by two generations of Mamet actors"“ from Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum and Robert Prosky in the 1983 original, to Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino (playing Ricky Roma) in the 1992 film, to the current superb cast.

Tragedy vs. satire

Decades may have separated Death of a Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross"“ two powerful plays about man's inhumanity against man in the workplace. But in my view, the ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness of the American business world remains the same.

Today "reality" TV shows like Donald Trump's "The Apprentice"— with its catchphrase, "You're fired!"— provide entertainment for people watching others get humiliated. Wall Street executives make mega-millions while their underlings lose their jobs. So how much has changed?

Yet as powerful as Mamet's polemic may be, you leave the theater feeling cold, recoiling from the ugly world he depicts. By contrast, audiences at Death of a Salesman are usually awash in tears at the play's end.

The fundamental difference is that Mamet is a satirist, while Miller is a tragedian. "The best plays, the ones we revere, are the tragedies," Miller wrote. "In them, and in them alone, lies the belief in the perfectibility of man."

In Death of a Salesman, Biff, Willy's older son, finally musters the courage to reject the dream that killed Willy. "I'm a dime a dozen," Biff cries at the end in a mixture of painful self-recognition and triumph. "I know who I am!" Biff vows to leave New York and the trap of American business "“ to travel west, to begin again, to work on the land with his hands.

Mamet's world, on the other hand, offers us no redeeming characters, no shred of hope, no promise of change or a new beginning. Some of the agency's salesmen walk out in protest against their inhumane treatment. But where do they go? To the competition. They're still in the game.

Arthur Miller's Biff Loman breaks away. Mamet's men stay in the system. Dog will survive only to eat dog again.