B'way/Off-B'way Reviews: Glengarry Glen Ross; Deep Blue Sound

John Pirruccello and Kieran Culkin in
Glengarry Glen Ross.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s savagely funny takedown of cutthroat Chicago real-estate salesmen, has been a magnet for male actors to prove their theatrical chops since it premiered on Broadway in 1984. The flashiest role, chief barracuda Ricky Roma, has attracted Joseph Mantegna, Liev Schreiber, Al Pacino, and Bobby Cannavale, resulting in Tonys for the first two and an Oscar nomination for the third for the 1993 movie version. Ironically, the main box office draw for the current, third Broadway revival of Glengarry is Kieran Culkin, Emmy winner for Succession and Oscar champ for A Real Pain, and he is the weak link in an otherwise strong ensemble. 

Culkin is no novice to the stage, having appeared to great advantage in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway shows including This Is Our Youth and Suburbia, yet he seems out of his depth here. Roma is a shark of the first order, but Culkin plays him as a loud-mouthed guppy. We first meet Roma landing a malleable prospect (appropriately browbeaten John Pirruccello) in a Chinese restaurant (Scott Pask designed the realistic sets.) Rather than displaying Roma’s take-no-prisoners, charismatic sales spiel of Mamet double-talk, Culkin opts for quiet subtlety. In previous productions, Roma aggressively lands his mark and the final line of “Listen to what I’m telling you now” felt like the trap was sprung. Here, Culkin seems to be just chatting amiably with a random stranger. That could be a deliberate choice on the part of the actor and director (Patrick Marber in a low-key mode) to show a contrast between Roma’s cosy sales technique and his later profane, predatory behavior in the office after the intermission. But Culkin never achieves the alpha male status of previous Romas, despite some energetic limning in the second act.

Bob Odenkirk and Donald Webber, Jr.
in Glengarry Glen Ross.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Thus the balance of the play is thrown off and the focus shifts from Roma to the conflict between veteran slumping drummer Shelley Levine (deliciously desperate and blustering Bob Odenkirk) and the corporate functionary/office manager John Williamson (an unexpectedly forceful Donald Webber, Jr.). In previous productions, Williamson has been played as an emotionless drone, representing the soulless owners of the real-estate business, the unseen Mitch and Murray who symbolize the heartless corporate bureaucracy the nasty but individualist Roma stands against. Here, Webber plays Williamson as just as intensely invested in keeping his job as his supervisees. When the weaker Culkin as Roma challenges a now stronger Williamson, the threat is not especially effective. Culkin comes across as a tantrum-throwing student yelling at a teacher which is ironic since he berates Williamson as being a “child” unfit to work with “men.”

State of the 2024 Film Awards Race

Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain is
the only sure-thing front runner
for the 2024 Oscars.

This year I have not seen as many Oscar contenders as last year. With the summer of Barbieheimer in 2023, there were two clear front-runners for the top awards (Barbie and Oppenheimer). This year, we've only got Glicked--Gladiator 2 and Wicked--as top blockbusters and Gladiator 2 is receiving only lukewarm praise. Neither is a lock for the Oscar Best Picture. Wicked might triumph on the strength of its box office, but several independent critics' darlings who have who scribblers' awards could sneak in. These include Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, 

The acting categories are almost all wide open. The only candidate who seems to have the Oscar all wrapped up is Best Supporting Actor front-runner Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. The Succession star has won a majority of pre-Oscar awards and nominations and is this year's Da'vine Joy Randolph whose Supporting Actress performance in The Holdovers totally dominated the 2024 field. Lead actor is a four-way race between Adrian Brody (The Brutalist), Timothee Chamalant (A Total Unknown), Coleman Domingo (Sing Sing), and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave). Best actress probable nominees include Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Bapiste (Hard Truths), Angelina Jolie (Maria), Mikey Madison (Arona), and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Perez). The Supporting Actresses include Ariana Grande (Wicked, in the supporting field to avoid competition with Erivo), Isabella Rosellini (Conclave), Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) and Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez). Although Rosellini's possible nomination is a mystery to me. I didn't think she was that impactful.

Still to come are the SAG and BAFTA nominees and the National Society of Film Critics which always goes their own way.

Below is a list of potential 2024 award-winning films I've seen so far and a breakdown of winners and nominees (so far). I have not included every single regional critics award because I have a life. In recent years the number of such movie reviewers' groups has proliferated to a ridiculous extent. It seems every major city in the US has one and some have two (one for traditional media and the other for online scribes.) Maybe I will get to including more of them eventually.

B'way Update: Glengarry and Purpose Set Dates, Theaters, Etc.

Kieran Culkin

Two Broadway productions have set dates, theaters and casting to nail down the spring 2025 season. The star-studded revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross will begin previews at the Palace Theater on March 10 with an opening set for March 31. The play about ruthless Chicago real-estate salesmen will star Kieran Culkin (currently the Best Supporting Actor Oscar front-runner for A Real Pain), Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, Donald Webber Jr., Howard W. Overshown and, in his Broadway debut, John Pirruccello. Tony winner Patrick Marber (Leopoldstadt) directs. The Palace is an unusual choice since its large size normally calls for large-scale musicals rather than intimate straight plays. The only straight plays to play the theater have been Frankenstein (1981) which closed after one performance, and Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1977) with Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Ashley, which ran 12 performances. Musicals such as Sweet Charity, Applause, La Cage Aux Folles, and Woman of the Year had longer runs.

Tony winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious) will star in

Kara Young

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose set to begin previews at the Hayes Theater Feb. 25 with an opening set for March 17. Tony winner Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun, Skeleton Crew) will make her Broadway directing debut, reprising her staging work with the play's world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theater of Chicago. LaTanya Richardson Jackson will also join the cast. Harry Lennix, Jon Michael Hill, Glenn Davis and Alana Arenas will repeat their Steppenwolf roles. The play centers on a prominent African-American family with each member hiding secrets. 

This accounts for all previously announced Broadway productions, but with the closing of Swept Away, the Longacre is available and a show might snap that one up before spring.

B'way Update: Glengarry Glen Ross

Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr
will star in the fourth B'way production of
Glengarry Glen Ross.

David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize winning play of ruthless real estate salesmen, Glengarry Glen Ross, will return to Broadway for the fourth time in the spring of 2025. Emmy and SAG Award winner Kieran Culkin (Succession), Emmy and SAG winner Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), and Emmy and Grammy nominee Bill Burr (Immoral Compass) will star. Tony and Olivier winner Patrick Marber (Closer, Leopoldstadt) directs. Odenkirk and Burr are making their Broadway debuts. Culkin previously appeared on Broadway in This Is Our Youth in 2014. Additional casting, dates, and a theater are to be announced.

“In 1983, I saw the original production of Glengarry Glen Ross in London,” Patrick Marber said. “I was just nineteen. The play blew my young soul away. It was one of the reasons I wanted to work in theatre. Forty years later, I am so thrilled to be directing it on Broadway with these incredible actors. I will do my utmost to ensure that this great American play brings audiences the same great pleasures it brought to me.”

Glengarry premiered at London's National Theater in 1983. It opened on Broadway in 1984 starring Joe Mantegna (Tony Award) and Robert Prosky; with revivals in 2005 with Tony winner Liev Schreiber, Alan Alda, and Jeffrey Tambor and in 2012 (with Bobby Canavale, Al Pacino, Richard Schiff and David Harbour). The 1992 film version starred Pacino (Oscar nomination), Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, and in a role written especially for the film, Alec Baldwin.

This depiction of ruthless capitalism is perfect for the current Trumpian moment. Hopefully, we'll have Harris as President by the time this show opens. There had been talk for years of an all-female production to be directed by Amy Morton, but so far such a version has not materialized.