Glenngarry Glenn Ross:

Sell at any cost or lose it all

By Dilshan Boange

[Part 2]

The production of Glenngarry Glenn Ross presented by Identities Inc. marked the directorial debut of Gehan Blok. It focuses on certain aspects of performance and politics of the playwright David Mamet.

Niren Neydorf playing the role of James Lingk the hapless victim of the slick talking entertainingly engaging Roma was distinctly Sri Lankan in his diction. There was no sign of any attempted American accentuation in his phonology which made a rather convincing character of him when it came to giving life to his emotions of distress and dilemma.

Although next to Ponweera’s manner of being very persuasively American as far as the sales talk goes, there was some innocuous incongruity that got woven to the fabric of the performance.

The manner in which Neydorf presented as the keen listener who was inescapably engaged to be suckered in for a sale when Roma went on his self indulgent discourse at the Chinese restaurant.

It made Neydorf the kind of player whose manner of expression through reaction speak soundly of his ability to contribute to the dialogue as the lesser talking partner he nevertheless plays his part as the ‘barely verbal’ and effective partner in that interlocution.

American enunciators

Perera, Ponweera and Keller seemed much better positioned in their roles to claim audience attention and appreciation as well since their characters afforded greater humour which is crucial when it comes to Sri Lankan audiences.

Perera must be commended for delivering what is surely a memorable performance as George Aaranow for whom sympathy would have been evoked from every person in the audience.

Between Keller and Ponweera the skill and superlative acting talent that they brought on stage at such junctures as when Levene begins narrating the way in which he closed a deal, could have kept the audience’s attention unbroken for hours on end.

The degree of talent for acting shown by these two actors is truly remarkable. Keller has the ability to devise his acting to be mercurial in shifting gears to being one who evokes different empathies from a viewer. The moment when he whittles down to a pile of pathos on the verge of losing his job pleading for sympathy from Williamson was where he managed to best craft his expression in terms of gesture and tone to convince the audience to sympathise with him.

Levene is about to be ‘closed on’. There was barely a laugh that became audible from the audience when Levene’s pleadings for mercy became more acute and intense.

After all audiences are more than willing to pounce on the opportunity to laugh as per Sri Lankan propensities, and a loud mouth like Levene on whom the tables turn after a round of loud mouthing, brought to the point of whimpering may be seen as a juncture when an audience can afford a sardonic laugh.

Yet the response from the audience was testimony to how Keller managed to convince all of them of the seriousness of his predicament and exacted the audience’s sympathies on to Levene’s side. There was a display of praiseworthy talent.

Rajiv Ponweera

“Talkers seduce, words direct us into corners,” says the character of David Caravaggio in Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, which is indisputably true in the case of Richard Roma brought to life by the extraordinary talents of Rajiv Ponweera. The skill he displayed to drive forth the performance with an all pervasive stage presence was astounding. From gestures to language in terms of tone and diction Ponweera marshalled the right dose of ingredients to change pace and switch modes as per the junctures in the storyline.

The performance he does in baiting Lingk at the restaurant could have just as well been a solo monologue act which would nevertheless keep the viewers convinced that the player knows what he is about and living out his character on stage. From the moments of laughter he generates effortlessly out of the audience to the seriousness of his demeanour in being menacing to the point of venomously castigating Williamson, Ponweera left no gaps open or steps misplaced in building and sustaining his performance as one which is capable of presenting many facets of human behaviour.

In respect of how in moments of waiting wordlessly for his lines, Ponweera showed reactions to the words being spoken between other characters evincing that he was very much a character who was attuned to what was going on in the folds of action on stage.

He did not in any way allow his character to become ‘furniture’ at any point although the narrative put another in the chair of the speaker.

His face never did at any point fall fully still when he was waiting for his turn to deliver his lines. Tacit engagement was evident from his facial expressions that were discernible for their varying wordless reactions which were at times somewhat pronounced and also very finely nuanced without drawing much attention depending on what the moment called for.

The performance Ponweera delivered spoke soundly of his competence and skill within him as an able actor which can be summed up in two words –‘sheer brilliance’.

Given his attributes of physical stature, acting skill and command of spoken English it is possible that Ponweera has the potential to make it on the big screen with well-known names in the international industry if the right opportunities were to come his way in the future.

After all there have been Indian actors such as Naseeruddin Shah and Art Malik who have marked a presence in the big league film industry of the Anglophone world.

Here’s a whole-hearted wish that a Sri Lankan too will make it to that celebrated level some day, while not forgetting that the much loved Ranjeet Singh who unforgettably offered “Thousand apologies” on the TV sitcom of yore, Mind Your Language played by Albert Moses, is a Sri Lankan.

Profanities

An aspect to note in the story of Glenngarry Glenn Ross written by Mamet is the choice of phraseology and the politics represented thereby when it comes to the choice of derogatory remarks cast on characters to demean them.

While none of it can be reproduced here for obvious reasons the sheer profanity in the nature of humiliation sough to be done upon the person castigated was ripe with gender politics in the context of ‘sexual orientation’.

Gay bashing remarks were as nearly as constant as strong breeze over the Galle Face Green! This aspect of the play revealed what was obviously a window into the American mentality of the male- dominated testosterone driven world of sales and marketing that declares masculinity in the form of the aggressive macho maleness to be a yardstick that measures a man’s worth. Expletive profanities that were based excessively on derogative terms of reference to male homosexuals were abundant in the play.

This aspect of the play brings to mind the criticism about American society and the belief that it is the ‘all American’ image of white heterosexual patriarchies which ensures the continuance of the American way of life –capitalism, that was brought out strongly in American playwright Tennessee Williams’ celebrated play Cat on a hot tin roof. Perhaps this aspect of the American mindset is what Mamet hoped to hit on through the insults between men devised in the play.

The actors on stage that evening brought to life the message in that sense very robustly to the aghast of many in the audience.

An all male affair

Another matter that struck me well after the show was that the story does not have a single female character. No woman comes on stage during the performance at any point. The story is, therefore, in an all-male voice, fully representative of the male psyche. But I never noticed it during the course of the play.

And it reminded me of what Sinhala fiction writer and dramatist Piyal Kariyawasam told me once when we were at the Punchi Theatre a couple of years ago, at a screening of the celebrated black and white Sinhala film –Haara Laksaya, which is based on the infamous true incident of the ‘turf club robbery’.

The film doesn’t have a single female in the cast of characters who make up the fabric of the story.

It is very different in that aspect I was told by Piyal when assessing the elements that generally form the scheme of a Sinhala film. But the thing is that this fact goes unnoticed until the end.

The total lack of a female character during the entire duration of the story fails to get registered in the mind of the viewer until the show is over.

Female presence

In that sense it speaks of the power of the narrative devised by the director. The same can be said of Glenngary Glenn Ross directed by Gehan Blok.

It didn’t occur to me until the next morning actually! A female presence to ‘pepper’ the ‘picture’ isn’t necessary for the sake of it. Glenngarry Glenn Ross in that sense, symbolically speaking, doesn’t sell sex.

Sinhala writer and dramatist Udayasiri Wickremaratne once said that for a work of theatre the greatest accolade and testimony to its worthiness is when theatregoers say it to be a show that they would enjoy watching more than once.

Gehan Blok’s directorial debut deserves that accreditation.

It is without a doubt a production I would recommend to theatregoers. It can be richly applauded as a triumphant arrival for Identities Inc.

Concluded