Put high-profile movie or TV stars in a popular, well-recognized vehicle. Rinse and repeat. That seems to be the current formula for Broadway success, especially when you can charge in the upper three figures for tickets. How else to explain yet another revival of David Mamet’s classic about shady real-estate salesman?
The current production of Glengarry Glen Ross marks the play’s third Broadway revival in twenty years, and it’s playing at the Palace, normally the home of large-scale musicals. But when you have a cast including recent Oscar-winner Kieran Culkin, superstar comedian Bill Burr, and not one but two stars of Better Call Saul, Bob Odenkirk and Michael McKean, well, to put it in the play’s parlance, those are quality leads.
The production directed by Patrick Marber sticks closely to the original template, albeit on a larger scale (that seedy Chinese restaurant in the opening scenes resembles a Chinatown dim sum palace in Scott Pask’s expansive set design). There’s no interpretive dancing, musical accompaniment, or fancy projections. There isn’t even an interpolation of the famous “Always Be Closing” speech as delivered by Alec Baldwin in the movie, which will probably disappoint theatergoers whose only experience with the work is that 1992 film adaptation.
[Read Roma Torre’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Glengarry will always be a draw for actors, thanks to Mamet’s profanity-laden dialogue that is nearly musical in its precise vulgarity. And while the play feels like an extended sketch, it offers the sort of vivid characterizations into which performers can really sink their teeth.
They certainly do so here, although this rendition features one significant miscasting that robs the play of some of its impact. Odenkirk and Burr fare the best, with the former playing the older salesman Shelley “The Machine” Levene like a sadder, tired-out version of Saul Goodman. If he doesn’t quite convey the pathos of previous actors who’ve played the role such as Robert Prosky or Jack Lemmon, his sharp comedic instincts garner laughs that weren’t there before. Burr, apparently making his stage debut, translates his well-honed, angry comic persona to his scheming Dave Moss, playing the part as if to the Mamet-born. He delivers the blistering dialogue perfectly, with lines like “Cop couldn’t find his dick with two hands and a map” landing with all the hilarious force it deserves.
Michael McKean perfectly captures the sad-sack resignation of his aging George, whom Moss attempts to recruit in a scheme to burglarize the office and sell the valuable leads. Donald Webber, Jr. well embodies the take-no-nonsense office manager Williamson, John Pirruccello is movingly pathetic as the client desperately attempting to cancel his deal, and Howard W. Overshown is effectively blustery as the cop investigating the robbery.
The problem is Culkin, arguably the show’s biggest draw. As demonstrated in his Emmy and Oscar-winning turns in Succession and A Real Pain respectively, he’s a superb actor equally capable of pathos and humor. But he doesn’t feel quite right as the macho Richard Roma, whose ruthlessness is matched only by his gift for deceptive gab. Culkin has the charisma, but not the force, for the character. He’s best when playing fast-talking man-boys whose bluster masks a terrible vulnerability. Here, he attempts to energize his portrayal with rapid-fire delivery, but the lines too often get lost or underplayed. When Roma asks his boss, “Who ever told you that you could work with men?” the question should land with devastating ferocity. Instead, it’s little more than a throwaway.
Glengarry, which feels painfully small in the vast theater, still packs a punch, thanks to Mamet’s beautifully crafted dialogue and its blistering depiction of toxic masculinity that feels even more relevant in today’s social and political climate. Although, considering how its author’s views have shifted so far to the right in recent years, he probably now considers it a feel-good play.
Glengarry Glen Ross opened March 31, 2025 at the Palace Theatre and runs through June 28. Tickets and information: glengarryonbroadway.com
