GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

David Mamet

Direction: Alisa Stojanovic
Costumes: Zora Mojsilovic
Scenography: Sasa Ivanovic
Music: Robert Klajn
Production: BELEF, BDT

Casts:
Levene: Vlastimir Djuza Stojiljkovic
Roma: Tihomir Stanic
Williamson: Gordan Kicic
Aronov: Goran Danicic
Moss: Slobodan Boda Ninkovic
Link: Predrag Denja Popovic
Baylen: Slobodan Custic

David Mamet

David Mamet was born in Chicago 30 November 1947. He wrote his first play “Camel”, a sort of a satiric review during his studies at the Goddard College. He studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York, where he wrote “The Boatlake”. He returned to Chicago in 1969 and worked as a taxi driver, the restaurant delivery boy and a real-estate salesman in a third rate agency that would subsequently become a subject of one of his most successful plays, Glengarry Glen Ross.

In 1971 Mamet taught at Goddard College in Vermont where he founded the Saint Nicholas Troup, mostly staging his own plays. He went back to Chicago in 1972 achieving his first significant success with “The Duck Variations” and “The Sexual Perversity in Chicago”; the two plays acclaimed him first the American and then the world reputation of the leading playwright.

Major plays:
Camel, 1966, Lakeboat, 1968, Duck Variations, 1972, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, 1972, first staged in Belgrade by Omar Abu el Rub for the Yugoslav Theatre of Drama in 1993), The Spanish Prisoner, 1973, American Buffalo, 1975 rewarded Obie Award, A Life in the Theatre, 1976, first staged in Belgrade by Lario Zaria for the Yugoslav Theatre of Drama in 1989, The Water Engine, 1977, The Woods, 1977, Revenge of the Space Pandas, 1978, Lone Canoe or the Explorer, 1979, Edmond, 1982, The Poet and the Rent, 1981, Glengarry Glen Ross, 1983, Pulizer Prize etc.

Film scripts:
The Verdict, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Untouchables, House of Games, Things Change, Homicide, Glengarry Glen Ross, Hoffa, Wag the Dog.

Essays:
Writing in Restaurants

Alisa Stojanovic

Born in Belgrade in 1968. She graduated in 1991. Theatre Directing, class of professor Dejan Mijac, and assistant professor Egon Savin at the Faculty of Drama, University of Belgrade. She is currently an assistant to professor Nikola Jevtic at the Faculty of Drama where she has been working since 1996. In Belgrade theatres A. Stojanovic directed: The Bold Soprano by Eugene Ionesko (Evening Stage "Radovic"), The Path of the Wild Animals by F.K. Kretz (Atelje 212), Turn Me On by L. Wilson (Belgrade Theatre of Drama), Behind the Scenes by M. Frayne (Atelje 212), Cabaret (co-direction with Soja Jovanovic, Theatre T), The Underground Passage by Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic (Atelje 212), Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol & V. Djuric for children theatre Bosko Buha, Anita’s Magic Room by G. Goncic (independent production), Under the Stars by M. Puig for the Belgrade Theatre of Drama, Here by M. Freyne for Atelje 212, Master-class by T. Nelly for BITEF Theatre, Art by J. Reza for Atelje 212, Couples by G. Markovic for the same theatre, Closer by P. Marber for Yugoslav Theatre of Drama, Three Versions of Life by J. Reza for Atelje 212, Pavillions by Milena Markovic for the YTD, Supermarket by Biljana Srbljanovic for YTD, The Fate and the Comments by Jelena Mijovic and Radoslav Petkovic for the National Theatre, Narcissus and Echo, the chamber opera by Anja Djordjevic for the BITEF Theatre and Sex for Beginners by Jasminka Petrovic and Jelena Mijovic for the Malo pozoriste theatre Dusko Radovic.

A word of the Director
A Story that Began to Make a Difference

Glengarry Glen Ross is a play that one of the greatest American playwrights, David Mamet dedicated to Harold Pinter. The play was written in 1983 and staged on almost all continents, but only following the James Foley’s movie in 1992 for which David Mamet adapted a script from the play did it achieve international fame. The movie featured Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey ...

In the seventies, David Mamet worked as a salesman in the real estate agency, making "contacts" with potential buyers. He was trying to convince people to buy something, as he put it, they most likely did not wish to. That is the background of the play: the contest in the real estate agency is closing down. The four salesmen have four days to fight their ways up to the high ratings in the firm. The two best rated will be awarded with a Cadillac and the set of knives while the two others will lose it all and be sacked ...

The salesman from the Arthur Miller’s “Death of the Salesman” used to be the symbol and the icon of the failure of American dream for years. Not any longer. He has been replaced by the quartet from the Glengarry real estate. The four salesmen became a synonym for the stressful relations in the capitalistic fight for jobs, in fact the fight for life.

At the time it first appeared, in 1992 we did not know what it was like to lose a job. Currently, in the transition period, we watch and see this story in a different way with a different sense of humour, but sadder at the same time. The play about capitalism is a review of brilliant acting achievements of actors of all generations...

Alisa Stojanović