Glengarry Glen Ross
By David Mamet
4/5
()
About this ebook
David Mamet
David Mamet’s numerous plays include Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award), American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, Boston Marriage, November, Race, and The Anarchist. He wrote the screenplays for such films as The Verdict, The Untouchables, Ronin, and Wag the Dog, and has twice been nominated for an Academy Award. He has written and directed ten films, including Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main, House of Games, Spartan, and Redbelt. In addition, he wrote the novels The Village, The Old Religion, Wilson, The Diary of a Porn Star, Chicago, and many books of nonfiction, including Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business; Theatre; Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama; and two New York Times bestsellers The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture and Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch. His HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, aired in 2013 and earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing. He was cocreator and executive producer of the CBS television show The Unit and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.
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Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Anarchist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Theatre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Penitent (TCG Edition) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Woods, Lakeboat, Edmond: Three Plays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chicago Boxing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Old Religion: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thunder Without Rain: A Memoir with Dangerous Game, God's Cattle, The African Buffalo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth of the Northeast Kingdom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for Glengarry Glen Ross
238 ratings11 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Riveting stuff. The patter of Mamet's dialogue lends to tension, even if the scene may not warrant it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play listened to the script read by a single narrator (non-Dramatized). It won a Pulitzer many consider it important, probably would be better seen on stage with actors. Foul-mouthed real-estate salesmen recount becoming "like family" with customers, while revealing the salesmen true ugly selves back at the office. Based on Mamet's own experiences. Sort of a Kitchen Confidential but less appetizing. It seems dated even for 1984, these are 1950s and 60s concerns about masculinity and the soullessness of modernity. Then again it is sort of timeless.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have seen this play before, but this is the first time I've read it. All I can say is that the play is best in its natural state - live, not on paper. Mamet's plays are difficult to "get" without the actors in front of you, and the dialogue can be increasingly impossible to follow. The plot itself, once unearthed, is always a rollicking good time, and this one was no exception.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A truthful look at American capitalism and male competitiveness.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Desperate real estate sales men go to any length to make a sale and earn a buck. I feel almost like this could have been a prequel to "Death of a Salesman." The dialogue is sharp and funny. It's a quick read, which I'm sure would be enhanced by seeing the film or seeing it on stage.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5root beer floats. this is a play for the ages. he shows his class and his man points rise. a classic.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dedicated to Harold Pinter, Mamet's masterpiece is certainly the American version of the Britsh master's theater of malice. But where everything is innuendo in Pinter, in Mamet, it's exuberant and hammer-fisted. The play does not include the classic "always be closing" scene which gave Alec Baldwin his very best role in the movie version. And the movie took a few halting steps toward trying to make the two leading characters a bit more sympathetic. Nonetheless, this play is just this side of perfect in its ability to induce groans and guffaws in equal measure. And, in its own very dark way, it's a deeply spiritual experience as well.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mamet is one of my favorite playwrights, I'm excited to work through more of his catalog.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not at all what I had expected (based solely on the title).
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting character clash, great dialogue and tense culmination. Film adds one more great scene and is amazing all together, so it's a nice follow up after this.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5"Death of a fuckin' salesman," they call it, and when I was a younger man that might have appealed but the fact is this is just death of a salesman with more fuckins, so who cares?
Book preview
Glengarry Glen Ross - David Mamet
Glengarry Glen Ross
WORKS BY DAVID MAMET
PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS
American Buffalo
The Cherry Orchard
(adapted from Anton Chekhov)
Five Television Plays
Glengarry Glen Ross
Goldberg Street:
Short Plays and Monologues
Homicide
House of Games: A Screenplay
A Life in the Theatre
Reunion and Dark Pony
Sexual Perversity in Chicago and
The Duck Variations
The Shawl and Prairie du Chien
Speed-the-Plow
Things Change: A Screenplay
(with Shel Silverstein)
Three Children’s Plays
Warm and Cold
(with Donald Sultan)
We’re No Angels
The Woods, Lakeboat, Edmond
GLENGARRY
GLEN ROSS
A PLAY BY
David Mamet
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 1982, 1983 by David Mamet
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or permissions@groveatlantic.com.
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Glengarry Glen Ross is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and all British Commonwealth countries, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.
First-class professional, stock, and amateur applications for permission to perform it, and those other rights stated above, must be made in advance, before rehearsals begin, to the author’s agent: Howard Rosenstone, Rosenstone/Wender, 38 East 29th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10016.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mamet, David.
Glengarry Glen Ross.
I. Title.
PS3563.A4345G56 1984 812’.54 83-49380
eISBN: 978-0-8021-9179-3
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com
14 15 16 17 32 31 30
This play is dedicated to
HAROLD PINTER
Glengarry Glen Ross
Glengarry Glen Ross was first presented at The Cottlesloe Theatre, London, England, on September 21, 1983 with the following cast:
The U.S. premiere of the play took place at The Goodman Theatre of the Arts Institute of Chicago in a Chicago Theatre Groups, Inc. production on February 6, 1984 with the following cast:
THE CHARACTERS
Williamson, Baylen, Roma, Lingk
Men in their early forties.
Levene, Moss, Aaronow
Men in their fifties.
THE SCENE
The three scenes of ACT ONE take place in a Chinese restaurant.
ACT TWO takes place in a real estate office.
ALWAYS BE CLOSING.
Practical Sales Maxim
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
A booth at a Chinese restaurant, Williamson and Levene are seated at the booth.
Levene: John . . . John . . . John. Okay. John. John. Look: (Pause.) The Glengarry Highland’s leads, you’re sending Roma out. Fine. He’s a good man. We know what he is. He’s fine. All I’m saying, you look at the board, he’s throwing . . . wait, wait, wait, he’s throwing them away, he’s throwing the leads away. All that I’m saying, that you’re wasting leads. I don’t want to tell you your job. All that I’m saying, things get set, I know they do, you get a certain mindset. . . . A guy gets a reputation. We know how this . . . all I’m saying, put a closer on the job. There’s more than one man for the . . . Put a . . . wait a second, put a proven man out . . . and you watch, now wait a second—and you watch your dollar volumes. . . . You start closing them for fifty ‘stead of twenty-five . . . you put a closer on the . . .
Williamson: Shelly, you blew the last . . .
Levene: No. John. No. Let’s wait, let’s back up here, I did . . . will you please? Wait a second. Please. I didn’t blow
them. No. I didn’t blow
them. No. One kicked