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The (mostly voluntary) lockdown accompanying the pandemic has provided plenty of time for reading. And re-reading. I have been reading and re-reading the plays, essays, sketches and commentary of David Mamet.
Mamet’s plays include “American Buffalo,” “Oleanna” and, most famously, “Glengarry Glen Ross,” which was adapted into a widely acclaimed film. The film version has a cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and Kevin Spacey. An all-star lineup, all men.
The play explores men at their most base. Abusive, cynical, grasping, manipulative, profane, weak. They are Chicago salesmen, peddling the Glengarry and Glen Ross properties, apparently dismal swamp lots, to suckers.