Last Updated on June 18, 2026
All-female cast reprises David Mamet play
3.5 out of 5.0 starsAnyone who has ever felt intimidated or manipulated by an estate agent will enjoy this play, revealing the underbelly of a real estate office whose staff are as manipulative of each other as of their customers. David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic comedy, Glengarry Glen Ross, does not hold back on exposing the darker side of this profession. With the 1992 film version of Glengarry Glen Ross having won awards and plaudits, and said to have brought together one of the best casts ever in an American film, it is refreshing to see the play taking a new direction altogether. Traditionally, a very male and aggressive story, here it is acted by an all-female cast directed by Patrick Marber.
The plot tells of a group of four Chicago estate agents competing to win a Cadillac. Second prize is a set of steak knives, while those who come in at numbers three and four get fired. These are not sympathetic characters; they are swindlers who lie and cheat to outmanoeuvre one another, no matter the cost to those who get in the way – usually their unsuspecting prospective purchasers. Mamet uses these cage fighters to comment on rampant American capitalism that sets people up against one another in an orgy of individualism. Reagan and Thatcher were in power at the time, and decades later, contemporary audiences may question how much has changed. In the 43 years since Glengarry Glen Ross premiered at the Cottesloe at the National Theatre in 1983, we are even more aware of the destructiveness of unbridled greed and acquisitiveness and its effect on our environment and the planet. Our quota-driven work culture continues to fuel the sort of toxic behaviour which sets the scene for this psychologically driven drama.
Staged in the round, as seems to be a permanent arrangement at The Old Vic, it has the sense of sitting around a boxing ring watching a knock-out fight. The perennial problem of not being able to see facial expressions or even hear all the lines clearly persists with this form of staging. However, the small size of the stage works to increase the sense of psychological menace.
Like any fight between seasoned bruisers, the balance of power keeps shifting as the characters turn on each other like rats in a sack. The desperation of only being as good as your last deal, added to the threat of being sacked, brings out the worst in characters who already appear to be callous, mendacious and sociopathic. These are people without a moral compass who lie, cheat, manipulate and bully. Imagine how they treat their unsuspecting customers. We get an insight into their hard-sell tactics during the course of Glengarry Glen Ross, and it is not a pretty sight. These are people for whom one feels no sympathy; they feel unredeemable.
There is some riveting acting in this production. Indira Varma and Rosa Salazar, especially as Levene and Roma. Varma’s character is on a rollercoaster from desperate bravura in the opening scene when she begs for a break to prove she still has the ability to bring the deal home, to a strutting peacock when she thinks she has, and finally, to impotent grovelling when she realises the game is well and truly over. She is a pleasure to watch.
Equally compelling was Salazar as Roma. She gave a tremendously physical performance, using twitches and tics to add a sense of a woman on the edge of violence. The exposition of her amoral worldview was chilling. She was the most gender fluid of the characters, which added to the plausibility of her performance as she manipulated and seduced both colleagues and customers. She was mean and cruel, callous and ruthless.
Dorothea Myer-Bennett, as Williamson, was a woman who knew how to turn her power as office manager to her advantage, and, following a humiliating stripping down by Roma and Levene, cleverly turned an error to her advantage.
As to why Glengarry Glen Ross has been put on with an all-female cast, why not? Several all-female productions have been staged, including Julius Caesar at the Donmar, Richard III at the Globe, and this raises the question of cross-gender casting. The problem with this production was that it seemed to be women playing men. Was this to parody toxic masculinity, or the result of the playwright not giving permission to change the names in the script? Thinking of Glengarry Glen Ross as a collection of gender fluid characters made more sense to me than having women acting as men – they retained their male names and references to their ‘balls’, which felt inauthentic. It would have been a stronger script without this disruption.
What is the point being made? That women can be as cruel and foul-mouthed as men? That they can be competitive and callous too? Have we not moved beyond these trite observations? The language used and style of delivery felt rather testosterone-fuelled.
The plot of Glengarry Glen Ross retains its surprises and is particularly effective if you have not seen the play or film previously. Yet I came away with a nagging feeling that the script is somewhat dated – casual racism being just one example – even if it had been an all-male cast. ‘We are the members of a dying breed, ’ says Roma. Thinking about some dinosaurs in Florida who rule the world as if it were one big real estate deal, it seems the breed continues to close the deal four decades after Mamet wrote this play.
Glengarry Glen Ross runs at The Old Vic from 4 June to 18 July
The Old Vic,
The Cut,
London SE1 8NB
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