Photos: Arina Arlukova
KATS, Kilkenny Amateur Theatre Society are known for bringing high end productions to the Watergate stage and this year’s production is no different. Ciarán Dunphy is back in the role as director for this all male Pulitzer prize-winning play by David Mamet. Ciarán previously held Kilkenny theatre goer’s captive with the audacious Clockwork Orange, and it will be no different with Glengarry Glen Ross, which is known for it’s distinctive (and salty) dialogue.
The plays title refers to two of the real estate developments that salesmen in the play have been pushing on investors: Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms. The names evoke luxury and wealth, precious swathes of finite land that are in fact dubious parcels of real estate in Arizona and Florida, that the plays ruthless characters sell to gullible buyers from a branch office in Chicago. What they’re selling has no value and they have no value if they’re not selling, “Only one thing counts in this life: get them to sign on the line that is dotted.”
The pungent rhythms of Mamet’s dialogue, with their clipped sentences and bursts of profanity, give Glengarry Glen Ross its unmistakable verve, but Mamet was remarkable in how carefully he delineates these characters. They’re all of a similar species, one with its own rapacious language and culture, but in this story of survival of the fittest, the strength and weaknesses in their temperaments tell the story. It’s imperative that they live to see another miserable day at the office, so the drama becomes a test of how far they’re willing to go to get on the sales board and at what cost to their soul.
Mamet wrote the play in 1983 and sent it to his mentor, Harold Pinter, saying he didn’t know how to bring it to a satisfactory end. “It’s perfect, stage it,” Pinter replied, and it was put on in London at the National Theatre with a British cast before having its Broadway premiere the following year, when it received the Pulitzer prize.
Glengarry Glen Ross is about many things – masculinity, morality, capitalism – but it’s fundamentally an “honour among thieves” story, following anguished men as they struggle to hang on to their integrity while they exploit, lie and steal, deceiving themselves as much as their unsuspecting clients. They’re dishonest, double-dealing swindlers who invite our sympathy as victims of a merciless, unforgiving system while winning our grudging admiration for the pride and cunning they show in the artistry of their deceptions.
This production features an incredible ensemble cast: Michael Hayes in one of theatres true iconic roles ‘Shelley Levene’, Fergal Millar, Shane O‘Keeffe, Peter Madden, Eoghan Fingleton, Niall Morrissey, Niall Bambrick and David Doyle.
Glengarry Glen Ross runs from Thursday the 29th– 31stof August 7.30pm nightly. Tickets are available on www.watergatetheatre.com
