Few playwrights write men as vividly as David Mamet, or women as poorly. The saving grace of Glengarry Glen Ross is that there are no women in it at all. Perhaps that is what inspired director Patrick Marber to stage an all-female production at the Old Vic.
When Mamet’s play premiered in 1984, a gender-swap would have felt radical. Today, in the wake of shows like Succession and Industry, audiences are used to seeing ruthless women occupy positions of power. What feels less familiar is the particular brand of machismo they are asked to embody here.
The real-estate salesmen of Glengarry Glen Ross are coarse, aggressive and fast-talking, saturated in a uniquely American variant of 1980s cynicism. Every conversation is a battle for status and survival, haunted by the threat of humiliation. The production’s in-the-round staging lends a gladiatorial quality to the action.
Rosa Salazar brings swagger and charisma to the ruthless Roma, stalking the stage and preening her ponytail with predatory confidence. Indira Varma is admirably desperate as Shelley “The Machine” Levene, the washed-up salesman clinging to old successes, although she exudes a little too much competence for a character defined by failure.
The production deliberately avoids establishing a clear sense of time and place. Marber cuts out the interval which he included in his 2025 (all-male) Broadway staging, delineating the shift from Chinese restaurant to office. Costumes appear broadly contemporary but evoke the silhouettes of the 1980s, hair and makeup awkwardly straddling the two eras, while the absence of mobile phones leaves the setting suspended somewhere in our imagination. A similar purposeful timelessness was useful in Ivo Van Hove’s recent All My Sons, but in this production we feel the lack of a strong visual identity. Are Marber and Mamet making the case that women are as ruthless as men in 2026? Despite strong performances across the board, the play felt like it was pulling a few crucial punches.
Glengarry Glen Ross is at the Old Vic, London SE1, until 14 July
[Further reading: Shakespeare’s Adonis is out of his depth]
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