For more than 40 years, “Glengarry Glen Ross,” David Mamet’s blistering, Pulitzer Prize-winning study of toxic masculinity among real estate salesmen, has provided a showcase for top-tier actors. The starry company of the last Broadway revival, in 2012, included Al Pacino, who had also appeared in the even starrier 1992 film adaptation.
In the movie, Mr. Pacino played Richard “Ricky” Roma, the slick, ruthless character who is his office’s top dog of the moment. On stage, an older Mr. Pacino took on the role of Shelly Levene, a washed-up old-timer who becomes the play’s most strikingly tragic figure, while Ricky was portrayed by a perfectly cast Bobby Cannavale.
In a new production helmed by Patrick Marber, these parts are inherited by two hugely popular, Emmy Award-winning television actors. Bob Odenkirk, who played con man and bogus lawyer Jimmy McGill and his alter ego, Saul Goodman, on “Breaking Bad” and the spinoff “Better Call Saul,” is cast as Shelley — as the name is spelled in the playbill (and was in the film credits) — while Ricky is played by Kieran Culkin, who was brilliant as Roman Roy, one of three hilariously hapless sons of privilege on “Succession.”
On that HBO series, Mr. Culkin — who also scored an Oscar just recently, for his fine work in Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” — demonstrated qualities that seem well suited to Mamet’s oeuvre, like a flair for scathing sarcasm and for slam-dunking liberally infused F-bombs. But as anyone who has seen or read “Glengarry” knows, Roman wouldn’t have lasted a day among these gritty, battle-scarred men — Ricky in particular, who had they been in high school would have likely bullied Roman and stolen his girlfriend for good measure.
Of course, no performer should be pigeonholed by his most famous project, and as a fan of Mr. Culkin in general, I was eager to see him channel his capacity for sharp wit into a different character. Unfortunately, it becomes apparent early on that the actor isn’t entirely up to the task at hand.
In his first scene, set in a Chinese restaurant where the guys do some of their wheeling and dealing, Ricky zeroes in on a poor schnook named James Lingk and reels him into purchasing land. The pitch — essentially a monologue, punctuated at points by an initially confused but soon rapt James — is crass but seductive, almost hypnotic; it’s meant to establish Ricky’s cunning and snake-like charisma.
But Mr. Culkin’s Ricky is more of a weasel than a snake. Shifting in his seat and making canned hand gestures, he projects a curious sense of unease. Later, when the action shifts to the office and Ricky’s anger and, eventually, panic are piqued, the actor is both funnier and more convincing, but he’s never quite credible as a smooth operator or, frankly, an alpha male of any variety.
Mr. Odenkirk fares better, bringing both the necessary pathos and comic facility to his role. His Shelley has the required stink of desperation and vestiges of arrogance; when at one point, emboldened by what will prove to be a hollow victory, he lashes out at the office manager, John Williamson — played by a superb Donald Webber, Jr. — you don’t know whether to laugh or wince, knowing he’ll come to regret his outburst.
Mr. Marber’s production — robust and absorbing, even if it doesn’t fully serve the snap, crackle, and pop of Mr. Mamet’s dialogue — features another performer well known to TV and movie fans: Bill Burr, a comedian whose affinity for culling humor from rage makes him an ideal fit for Dave Moss, Ricky and Shelley’s brash, bitter colleague. Michael McKean, the ensemble’s most seasoned stage and screen actor, brings the right mix of wryness and empathy to George Aaronow, who shares some of Shelley’s frustration, but not his lack of judgment.
But some of the best work here is done by lesser-known players — key among them Mr. Webber, who as John evolves chillingly into a cold-eyed model of corporate soullessness from a harried straight man to his volatile charges. John Pirruccello is at once droll and poignant in the smaller role of James, who is so passive and readily manipulated that he ends up apologizing to Ricky.
“I know I’ve let you down,” James says, to the man who has just hoodwinked him. Thanks to its better performances, this “Glengarry Glen Ross,” if not as sizzling as fans might have hoped, doesn’t disappoint accordingly.
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