Law School Drama

Tonight through Saturday the Duke Law Drama Society is performing David Mamet's dark and depressing play, Glengarry Glen Ross. In 1992 the play was turned into a movie starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey and has since become a cult hit among law students and professionals. The premise of the play is that sales reps in a real estate firm are pitted against each other in a month long sales competition. The winner of the contest gets a new car, while the salesman who finishes last gets fired. What ensues is a story of inter-office power plays, alliances and robbery. The real question for the audience, however, is not who is going to sell the most property, but how much integrity each person is willing to sacrifice in order to earn money.

Members of the audience who have seen the movie or other renditions of Glengarry Glen Ross will be surprised to see Alyssa Greenwald and Kristina Evans on stage. In the movie version, Alyssa Greenwald's character, Roma, is portrayed by Pacino as the typical hotshot male. Director Jerry Deluca made the decision to have women portray male characters in order to give this particular production a unique spin. He also chose to include Greenwald and Evans so that the female members of the society could have the chance to be a part of the show.

The gender substitution is one bright spot of the production. Also worth noting is Garrett Levin's performance as Levene; he does a commendable job as an office veteran struggling to keep up with the younger members of the office. Other members of the cast (including two first time actors) seemed as if they were having a hard time putting down Black's Law Dictionary in order to get into character.

Indeed, it is more than obvious that the show is produced by law students who pursue theater solely as an extracurricular hobby. Because of the unavoidably demanding schedule of a law student, the drama club spreads its rehearsals over the entire school year in order to ensure the best possible show, instead of trying to squeeze an entire production into one semester. Given the circumstances, the production is decent. Perhaps its greatest appeal will be to law students or other members of the movie's cult following, facing the "real world" realities present in the play.