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July 30, 2010
The real estate rat race
Glengarry Glen Ross comes to Arts Club.
BAILA LAZARUS
If you’ve ever worked in sales, you’ll know the stress of finding clients to purchase your product or service. And you might have taken part with co-workers in a sales-revenue competition or two meant to motivate staff.
In David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, this motivational tool gets taken to the extreme when a real estate office sends a henchman to whip four salesmen into shape. They end up using desperate, deceitful techniques, including lying, breaking and entering and stealing, in order to sell somewhat suspect land to their victim clients.
For Brian Markinson, playing a part in the theatrical production at the Arts Club Theatre offered numerous benefits and hurdles.
Reached during dinnertime, Markinson was on a break from Glengarry Glen Ross. The cast was having a final dress rehearsal and the following night was to be the first paid performance. It had been a long three weeks, Markinson said, rehearsing eight hours a day, six days a week.
Markinson is playing the part of George Aaronow, a meek member of the sales team in the cast.
“I’m used to playing edgy characters,” said Markinson. “George, whom I have grown to love, has no edges. He probably has no business being a salesman.
“He’s a good man, just not built for this world [where] you eat what you kill – and if you don’t kill, you don’t eat.”
Markinson has had the good fortune of having regular television and theatre work to keep him busy as an actor for the past 20 years. His credits include dozens of TV shows, films and plays based all over North America. He doesn’t often take theatre work, admitting he can be a bit choosy when it comes to selecting jobs, but this particular cast made doing Glengarry worthwhile.
“It’s been fantastic,” said Markinson. “I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop but it just hasn’t happened. “It’s a really great group of guys – Eric [McCormack of Will and Grace], Vince [Gale], [John] Pyper [Ferguson] and Bart [Anderson] are old friends and a couple of years ago they were sitting in Chambar and they decided they wanted to do a play together.”
Markinson knew Gale from when Gale saw him in a small play a couple of years ago. “Vince wanted me to be in everything he was doing,” Markinson laughed. The two did True West and Waiting for Godot together and, when McCormack was looking for people to read for parts, Gale suggested Markinson.
Glengarry Glen Ross takes place in a Chicago real estate office. The four salesmen are desperate to win the contest in which they’ve been forced to compete because losing means getting fired. Glengarry opened in London in 1983 and was made into a movie starring Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemon, Ed Harris, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin as Markinson’s character, George.
“George represents the emotional conscience of the play. He’s ineffectual, he’s not the sharpest tack in the box and he’s easily led,” Markinson said. “He’s a good man, just not built for this. He has a set of principles.”
Markinson himself has had a variety of sales-related jobs in his life, so he feels more confident with people than his character does.
“It’s been an unlearning for me trying to find smoother edges. He’s not a killer, and this is a play about killers. He’s the detritus – what’s left. There’s a reason Mamet leaves him on the stage at the end.
Mamet is well known for highly dramatic plots and his own unique style of dialogue. He wrote and directed 1997’s The Spanish Prisoner and wrote screenplays for The Verdict, The Untouchables and Wag the Dog.
In order to get into character, Markinson modeled his on-stage persona after his 92-year-old Polish-Ukranian grandfather.
“I wanted to show the desperation of the guy,” Markinson explained. “He’s always at the bottom of the board, two days away from being fired. What does that do to a person – when someone takes away your usefulness?... People tend to walk all over him.”
He doesn’t see George as dumb, he said, just someone who’s out of his element.
It’s not surprising that Markinson has a generosity and understanding of George that’s a little different from other interpretations. Markinson’s own father lost his job when Markinson was a teenager. His father didn’t tell anybody for days, leaving the house each day as though everything was business as usual.
“We didn’t know for three days,” said Markinson. “He couldn’t come home and tell us.... I try to put myself in the car with him,” Markinson said of attempting to understand the feeling of desperation.
Originally from Chicago, Markinson moved to Vancouver from Los Angeles 10 years ago. His wife is Canadian and Markinson became a Canadian citizen last year, in October.
Markinson is pleased that the play is getting so much attention because of the presence of Hollywood star McCormack. “I think it’s great for Vancouver theatre to have something that’s more of an event these days. I’m a firm believer that if you build it, they will come,” Markinson said.
Glengarry Glen Ross is directed Michael Shamata. It stars Markinson, Gale, McCormack, Anderson, Ferguson, Daren Herbert and Gerard Plunkett.
The play runs at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (on Granville near 12th Avenue) until Aug. 22. Tickets are $25, $43 and $63 inclusive of all tax and fees. Call the Arts Club box office at 604-687-1644 or visit artsclub.com.
There is a warning for coarse language.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net.
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