'Glengarry' Starts With Soft Sell, But Then It Moves In for the Kill

"Glengarry Glen Ross" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1984 -- long before lingo like "commercial paper" and "credit default swaps" became household terms. The current financial crisis, however, highlights the anxiety factor in David Mamet's tale of bellicose, expletive-slinging real estate salesmen.

Watching the initially sluggish but ultimately muscular Keegan Theatre staging of this classic, you're hyperaware of the financial insecurity and greedy recklessness that, along with a lot of testosterone-charged ambition, fuel the characters' psychological and verbal jujitsu.

The ferocity of that combat takes a while to make itself felt in this production, which is directed by Jeremy Skidmore at the Church Street Theater. (The show runs simultaneously with another Keegan production, Liam Heylin's "Love, Peace and Robbery," at Arlington's Theatre on the Run.) "Glengarry's" first act takes place in a Chinese restaurant that is the salesmen's favorite haunt. Using a decorative orange-paper lantern and beaded doorway curtain that lend bleakness, rather than charm, to a row of tables and a red-upholstered booth, set designer Jacob Muehlhausen turns this ethnic greasy spoon into a likely arena for macho rivalry and hucksterism.

But a bit of restless stage business -- having to do with eatery patrons -- delays the play's initial speech, sapping some of the opening's energy and focus. Nor does the diffuseness wholly evaporate with the launching of said speech, delivered by the most desperate of Mamet's hawkers: the veteran Shelly "The Machine" Levene (Kevin Adams). In the throes of a losing streak he can't manage to shake, Levene begs and berates the pitiless office manager John Williamson (Colin Smith) for the right to some of the firm's more promising sales leads. Infused with the right vehemence and momentum, this dialogue should get the show off to a wham-bam start -- but Adams doesn't quite muster the necessary urgency.

Fortunately, the actor's performance gathers color and conviction as the show proceeds, and the production's other turns yield fewer faltering moments. Smith gives Williamson just the right shark-eyed poise: Ruthlessly interrupting Levene's arguments -- and scissoring his chopsticks in a dismissive, you're-nattering-again gesture -- the office manager displays his comfort with power. (Costume designer Erin Nugent rounds out the portrait with a slick three-piece suit and shiny cufflinks that contrast with the other characters' shabbier-looking garb.)

Other acting highlights include Mark A. Rhea's blustering and exuberantly sleazy Richard Roma, the real estate firm's current alpha dog; Michael Innocenti's shell-shocked James Lingk, a gullible Roma victim; and Stan Shulman's endearingly rabbity George Aaronow, a salesman whose snail-oil-vending skills are on the ebb.

And Act 2 -- which is considerably more dynamic and gripping than Act 1 here -- brings fleeting but forceful appearances by Bill Aitken, who plays Baylen, a detective investigating a robbery in the real estate company offices (eloquently rendered by Muehlhausen as a seedy, paper-strewn headquarters with cheap furniture, an empty water cooler and a pathetic Christmas tree).

Although "Glengarry" is often celebrated for the musicality of its whiplash tough-guy banter, the pacing of this version doesn't place that quality in particularly high relief. But the languorous opening aside, the production opens up the passion and drive of Mamet's divertingly crass protagonists, and the story's suspense quotient effectively snowballs as the characters ricochet together in Act 2.

As it happens, Keegan had not originally planned to mount "Glengarry" now. The production -- an encore of a version that toured Ireland in 2007, with two new actors -- substitutes for a previously announced "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which was rescheduled to avoid a conflict with Round House Theatre's planned rendering of that work. (Keegan's "Cuckoo" will now fly in July.) Given the general solidity of this replacement show, Keegan comes off looking as resourceful as any of Mamet's fast-talking property dealers.

Glengarry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Directed by Jeremy Skidmore; lighting design, Dan Martin; sound, Ryan Rumery. With Peter Finnegan. About 1 hour 40 minutes. Through Dec. 20 at the Church Street Theater, 1742 Church St. NW. Call 703-892-0202 or visit http://www.keegantheatre.com.