We’ve got used to gender-swapped or gender-blind casting as an illuminating or refreshing technique in London theatre, or simply as a redress of patriarchal norms, especially in classics. But Patrick Marber’s all-female staging of David Mamet’s hyper-masculine 1984 study of desperate real-estate salesmen somehow feels compellingly new and strange. Indira Varma and Rosa Salazar lead a cast of women who dress and sound like women, playing characters who are entirely and narrowly male, their body language tacking between the genders. As alpha Ricky Roma, Salazar has a forceful, shoulders-forward stance, but also habitually whips her ponytail through her circled fingers. Even as Mamet’s machine-tooled, combative dialogue locks in your attention, the casting throws a light on the deliberate shallowness of his characterisation. It’s an arresting but oddly distancing experience, as if you’re watching two plays at once, your brain constantly trying to unpick them.
A Workplace Competition
In a Chicago realty office that becomes an arena in Marber’s in-the-round staging, four fast-talking, peripatetic salesmen are engaged in a workplace competition. The one who sells the most units gets a Cadillac: the runner-up, a set of steak knives. Third and fourth on the chalkboard will get fired. In a stark depiction of the realities of capitalism, the best salesmen are given the best ‘leads’ on potential buyers.
Varma’s Shelley Levene
Varma’s Shelley ‘the Machine’ Levene is an older, once-great dealmaker whose magic touch has gone cold, lending his nickname an ironic twist. We first see him pleading with, then attempting to bribe office manager John Williamson (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) for richer pickings. The second scene between his angry rivals Aaronow (Nancy Crane) and Moss (Niky Wardley) reinforces the undercurrents of deception and criminality that so fascinate Mamet.
Then, boom, on comes Salazar’s Roma, blasting away the defences of Lingk (Mercedes Bahleda) with his rat-a-tat hustle. At first it feels like an aggressive, woman-on-woman pickup schmooze, then a gay male flirtation, before it’s revealed as a sales pitch. Powered by Salazar’s fiery-eyed charisma, this scene is a distillation of the layered dynamics of Marber’s production. Eventually, all of them collect in the ransacked office under the gaze of an exasperated cop (Florence Odumoso).
Characterisation and Gender Dynamics
Beyond the fact that Shelley has a daughter, and they all eat lunch at a local Chinese restaurant, we learn little about any of these men. Their home lives and backstories are irrelevant to the portrayal of competitive swagger and underlying anxiety. Their machismo is built on con-man patter, epitomised by Shelley’s fast improvisation to help Roma bamboozle the misgiving Lingk.
Interestingly, Lingk’s apologetic character (“I’ve let you down”) feels the most feminine, probably because in the world of the play weakness is womanly. I’m astonished that Mamet backed the idea of an all-XX-chromosome staging given his preoccupation with masculinity and his gradual move from liberalism to a full-tongues embrace of Donald Trump: the MAGA movement isn’t known for its nuanced attitude to gender.
Marber’s Experimental Vision
But Patrick Marber helmed the 2025 Broadway production of Glengarry starring Kieran Culkin as Roma and Bob Odenkirk as Levene, which broke box office records. Clearly Mamet trusted him to engage in this experimental version. (Though he refused to let him include the famous “always be closing” speech written for a new character played by Alec Baldwin in the 1992 film.) And that’s what this is: an experiment in perception and the artifice of acting. We simultaneously believe and don’t believe that these women are men. The casting accentuates the testosterone of Mamet’s writing rather than finding anything new in it. We are always aware we are watching a performance.
Which is not to detract from the grip of Marber’s production and the achievements of the cast, particularly the two leads and the always-valuable Myer-Bennett. Varma brings a desperate bravado to the defeated Shelley and Salazar is simply outstanding as the swaggering Roma. They capture the urgent rhythms of Mamet’s dialogue perfectly. Fascinating.
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To 18 Jul, oldvictheatre.com.
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