STAGE REVIEW : ‘GLENGARRY’ TAKES CARE OF BUSINESS

What is the great American play? “Death of a Salesman,” right? So David Mamet writes another play about salesmen. And it’s good .

Good? It’s remarkable . It’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” at the Henry Fonda Theatre, and its characters talk in italics because it’s a jungle out there, and they have to go into it every day, armed only with “leads,” few of them hot.

They are selling land in Florida, which may even be real land, but that’s not the point. The point is closing the sale. This is not done with facts . These guys know that you have to inspire the customer like the preachers on TV, psyching out his guilts and discontents, and promising him redemption. You have to convert the sucker.

And then his wife makes him cancel the deal. Is it any wonder that these guys curse like a submarine crew? This is the real world, not the Harvard Business School. And they’re going under.

So why not steal some leads? As in Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” the plot hinges on a small-time break-in, which in this case actually gets accomplished. But the meat of the play isn’t what happens. It’s who these men are, at least at work.

Who else they might be isn’t examined. There’s not a word of private stuff in the play, which is realistic in an all-male office where nobody trusts anybody. Mamet’s salesmen are at war with each other as well as with the rest of the world (the biggest seller this month gets a Cadillac) and the leitmotif of their every conversation is “---- you,” used sincerely.

It all rings true, down to the scummy metal Venetian blind on the office door. (Michael Merritt did the settings.) Mamet must have done time in just such a drab office, vowing to get out of it. Yet he’s obviously fascinated with a life that’s so nakedly dog-eat-dog. What made America great? Salesmanship, right? Well, here’s the life of a salesman. Welcome to the pit.

Peter Falk plays an older guy named Shelly Levene, nicknamed “Levene the Machine,” but the machine is wearing down. He can still come through in a clutch, though, which definitely describes the situation today. Shelly’s description of how he inspired a certain Bruce and Harriett Nyborg into buying eight (EIGHT!) units of Glengarry property is a classic, but Mamet does even better than that.

He shows us a pigeon being plucked. The salesman in this case is named Ricky Roma, a name possibly inspired by a Las Vegas billboard. Ricky’s sharp threads (costumes by Nan Cibula) testify to his knowledge that all business today is show business.

Actor Joe Mantegna makes Ricky not only funny, but alarming in that we begin to feel some of the exhilaration of his meek customer (Chuck Stransky), even as we see Ricky’s game. People are so starved for contact these days that any offer of intimacy is welcome, and Ricky throws himself into every sale.

It’s also alarming to realize that Ricky believes in his spiel, not literally, but as a symbol of the dream that he’s chasing himself, even though he counts himself a realist. Ricky’s a mystic, with all the psychic energy that goes with that, and all the capacity for cataclysm.

But it’s not his time for tragedy just yet, so Falk takes the fall as the older salesman, not entirely in keeping with our view of him as a guy who can take care of himself. Here the play does a certain amount of fast talking on its own.

Still, it closes the deal. This is a fine piece of theater, supplying the big, cynical laughs that another generation gave to another punchy Chicago play called “The Front Page,” but also suggesting a certain regret that men have to do such lousy things in order to earn a living. Put that ingenuity into building something and we’d be in business.

But Mamet’s not a moralist or a social engineer. He’s a reporter, and he doesn’t fudge the fact that a lot of guys actually enjoy butting heads with each other. It’s their entertainment. And ours, in Gregory Mosher’s hard-slugging staging.

Falk is the box-office name, and he eventually rises to his character. But Mantegna provides the most compelling performance. His Ricky really leaves you with a buzz. This is true stage energy, sending the viewer out more alert than when he came in.

But there are no deadheads in this office. Alan Manson as the burned-out Aaranow, J. J. Johnston as the big-talking Moss, J. T. Walsh as the pusillanimous office manager Williamson and Jack Wallace as the brusque police lieutenant Baylen--we believe them, and half-admire them. Whatever they are, they’re up front about it.

And let’s hear it for the patsy, beautifully played by Chuck Stransky. His name is Linck, and you may identify with him as he tries to resist Ricky’s irrefutable flow of bilge and get his money back--or his wife will kill him. Ah, yes, we’ve been there all right. “Glengarry Glen Ross” is the goods.

‘GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS’ David Mamet’s play, at the Henry Fonda Theatre. Director Gregory Mosher. Sets Michael Merritt. Costumes Nan Cibula. Lighting Kevin Rigdon. Produced by Elliot Martin, James M. Nederlander, Arnold Bernhard and the Goodman Theatre of Chicago. With Peter Falk, Joe Mantegna, J. J. Johnston, Alan Manson, Chuck Stransky, Jack Wallace and J. T. Walsh. Plays Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m., with matinees Saturdays and Sundays at 2. Closes Dec. 22. Tickets $21.50-$29.50. 6126 Hollywood Blvd. (213) 410-1062 or (213) 216-6666.