Feb. 28, 2013. “I truly think that Glengarry Glen Ross is one of the best plays of the last 50 years,” said director Derek Davidson, Artistic Director of In/Visible Theatre.
Glengarry Glen Ross is by American playwright David Mamet, and the show opened on Broadway in 1984. The plot involves ruthless real estate salesmen who need to either make sales or lose their jobs.
Director Derek Davidson, an Appalachian State University theatre professor and co-founder of Boone’s new In/Visible Theatre, says, “David Mamet has an amazing ear for natural language, the way people speak. The cadences, the musicality, even the poetry in expletives.”
Davidson wrote and directed Bumbershoot, In/Visible Theatre’s inaugural production, which the company sent to the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival. Local audiences may have seen his recent ASU productions of Middletown or his sustainable approach to the play Big Love.
Glengarry Glenn Ross is intended for adult audiences, with the characters using frequent rough language as an expression of their desperate circumstances. Davidson says “the cursing is the pigment and is profoundly connected to character…there is something brutal and rudimentary about the conflicts in this play in that they’re fighting for basic scraps that will help them survive.”
As part of its mission, In/Visible Theatre presents new plays, new interpretations of older plays, or, in this case, plays infrequently produced in the area. Also dedicated to using regional artists whenever possible, In/Visible Theatre is producing Glengarry Glen Ross because of the interest of a group of local actors.
“I love working with Derek,” said Victor Rivera, an actor who appeared in Middletown last November. “A bunch of us actually approached him about directing Glengarry , and we were pretty excited he said yes. We knew it would be a perfect challenge for us, and that his love of interesting language would make him a really good match for this play.”
The all-male cast also includes Chris Hinton, Jack Lafferty, Tim Reis, Jacob Dailey, Ryan Sheehy, and Preston Perrin. Davidson explains that having only male characters is also connected to the play’s theme, saying “They’re products of a place and time, urban men in a culture of testosterone, living by their wits where capitalism is taken to a horrific conclusion. It is a great, great play. It really is. I love it.”
Glengarry Glen Ross will play at 7:30 p.m. in the I.G. Greer Theatre on the ASU campus on March 1 and 2. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at the door, or by calling 828-262-3063. Questions may be directed to In/Visible Theatre Producing Artistic Director Karen Sabo at invisibletheatrewnc@gmail.com.
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