David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross is as poignant today as it must have been when it was first presented in the early 1980s.  The anxiety and desperation of buyers and brokers remains pertinent in our society,  serving as catharsis for the repercussions for the recovering economy of our present.  Though the causes have changed and decades have passed, Mamet’s work dually depicts the stresses of selling and purchasing property.  The Independent Drama Society’s production of Glengarry Glen Ross highlights the cyclical, therefore cyclically destructive, nature of the American capitalist economy.

The Independent Drama Society brought this piece to life in the Plaza Black Box Theater at the Boston Center for the Arts.  The set was built in two distinct areas for the two distinct acts of the play – the first struck and second constructed during the evacuative intermission.  Act I offered satirical character development through a series of one on one discussion, all about real estate.  Act II gave the climax, conflict and drama of the work.  The technical aspects of the show came together to effectively create the illusion of the story.  Director Brett Marks worked well with ¾ wrap audience – a good use the black box space.  The action was such that it could clearly be seen from any angle.

Craig Houk as Moss and Michael Pevzner as Aaronow stole the first act with their vignette of bitterness and bumbling (respectively).  Bob Mussett as Lingk made a particular impact in the first act, in spite of his character’s lack of lines.  Jeremy Brown as the sordid and paltry Williamson was very convincing.  He laid the groundwork in the opening of the show scripted mostly with silent reaction.  It was in the second act, however, that Brown’s performance was fully realized.  The stand out performer of the evening was Phil Thompson.  Thompson played the aging and flailing Levene, struggling to reclaim his former glory.  With the mouth of a sailor and the tenacity synonymous with real-estate ( and salesmanship in general), Thompson brought to life the insecurity of a commission based income, and paradoxically highlighted the risk of investment.  Thompson appeared to be in the moment, and personified the sharp edge of a shifty market.

The Independent Drama Society has brought together an entertaining production.  The themes of their Season of Love and Loathing season are clearly highlighted with Glenngarry Glenn Ross.  Salespeople’s inability to accept “no” for an answer is punctuated in this piece.  Walking the fine line between wage earner and con-man, a broker can easily satisfy both aspects of the IDS season.  An object of love when they find your dream home, but when investments go wrong, the real-estate agent can easily become the subject of loathing.

Keep your eye on IDS.  They are indeed an up and coming local theater company.  The hard work of the production team is evident and I look forward to seeing the continued offerings of this season. The company’s continued selection of worthwhile works demonstrates their taste, and their production value rivals companies who have been around a lot longer.  I expect IDS to continue growing and making themselves a staple in the Boston theater scene.

Phil Thompson as Levene and Michael Fisher as Roma in the Independent Drama Society’s production of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, Tix and info: independentdramasociety.org. Photo by Bethany Krevat.

The Zeitgeist Stage Company has yet again transformed the intimate BCA Black Box into a unique playing space for their winter production, Alan Ayckbourn’s Private Fears in Public Places.  Part apartment, part office, part hotel bar, the thrust-style space is fully explored by the actors, hiding and highlighting different interactions for different areas in the audience.  It only heightened the sense of mystery we felt as the character’s stories and relationships unfold around us.

Private Fears in Public Places is a brief slice of life that follows six lonely souls as they strive to make connections with the world around them- not realizing how interconnected they already are.  Running throughout their stories is a vein of darkness that may keep them from achieving their dreams. Not your typical love and loss story, the show isn’t always clear about who we should believe.  Does sullen Dan, on the verge of serious alcoholism, drink from fear of failure or to escape from a loveless relationship?  Does sweet and innocent Charlotte plot sexual games with her friends and coworkers to keep her entertained or is she reaching out in desperation for help from a crushing addiction?  Is soft-spoken, mild mannered Ambrose hiding a life of homosexuality from his ailing father or merely focusing his attention on his work to hide his fear of losing him?  No real answers are ever given in this one act play, set up in short vignettes, giving the audience bursts of story that take us right to the edge of comprehension before swinging us right back into the blurred confusion of their solitary and tragic lives.

Zeitgeist’s cast of six include company regulars, Michael Steven Costello, Christine Power, Bill Salem, Becca A. Lewis, and Robert Bonotto, and introduced newcomer Shelley Brown.  Bonotto’s pained and nervous depiction of Stewart was excellent, as was Brown’s heartbreaking portrayal of a lonely spinster looking for love in the personal ads. They were both at home on the stage and had an eerily comfortable family dynamic.  I enjoyed Power and Costello’s chemistry as Dan and Nicola, as well as the fun and funny bar scene that Brown and Costello shared.  Salem’s sensitive treatment of Ambrose was a fresh breath after the heavy and intense scenes surrounding him.  The knockout performance of the night came from Lewis in her interpretation of Charlotte.  Besides her spot-on British accent (the hands down best in the cast), her stage presence was spectacular.  You could not help but look at her even when she was not the focus of the scene.  While I credit the playwright with giving her the most provocative character, I credit Lewis for her nuance.  The performers were, overall, solid and committed, and I enjoyed them as a unit as well as individually.

I’m not quite sure, though, if I enjoyed the production as a whole.  Ayckbourn’s script leaves a lot of questions unanswered and doesn’t lay the foundation for the audience to fill in the answers on their own.  Director David J. Miller chose to include the use of British accents for the whole cast (the show was originally produced in the UK) but the cast could only pull this off with varying degrees of expertise, which continuously pulled me out of the story.  Though it was technically sound and the actors and actresses gave clean and thoughtful performances, it lacked the wow factor that I have come to expect from Zeitgeist productions. Overall a solid, but not spectacular, production.

Bill Salem and Michael Steven Costello Photo by Richard Hall/Silverline Images