Where are all the Jewish Shelley Levenes in the ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ revival?

When it comes to the new Broadway cast of Glengarry Glen Ross, the leads are anything but weak.

Kieran Culkin is set to play the smooth-talking Ricky Roma, Bill Burr the scheming Dave Moss, and Bob Odenkirk will continue a long tradition by being a non-Jewish actor playing the obviously Jewish Shelley Levene.

It is somewhat curious that David Mamet’s breakout play, focusing on desperate real estate salesmen known for their almost iambic talent for profanity, has largely avoided casting Jewish actors for the character who has a name so quintessentially Jewish that it seems destined to endow a chair in Hebraic Studies.

On the West End in 1983, the part of Levene was originated by Derek Newark, who, despite having a name that recalls a traditionally Jewish enclave in New Jersey, was not Jewish.

In Mamet’s native Chicago and then on Broadway in 1984? It was Robert Prosky (born Robert Joseph Porzuczek) who played Levene. Prosky wasn’t Jewish, but Peter Falk, who took over in 1985 when the show went on tour, was. Falk, best known for playing Columbo and for his collaborations with John Cassavetes, was a rare exception for major commercial theaters in the U.S. and U.K.

When the play was adapted into a film in 1992, it was a twitchy Jack Lemmon who was eviscerated by a smooth-talking Alec Baldwin, preaching the ABCs of closing. This performance directly inspired the character of Gil Gunderson on The Simpsons, voiced by the non-Jewish Dan Castellanetta.

In 2000, Charles Durning requested the Glengarry leads in a regional production in Princeton, New Jersey. Other notable actors to play Levene include Alan Alda, Al Pacino (who was Roma in the film), Jonathan Pryce (who played Lingk in the ‘92 movie), and Dublin-born Stanley Townsend.

What does it mean that Levene, the pitiable shlimazl of Mamet’s drama, is so often played by a gentile, even as the character of Aaronow, perhaps even more pathetic, has been portrayed by great Jewish thespians like Richard Schiff, Alan Arkin, Jeffrey Tambor, and Mike Nussbaum?

Ultimately, not much. Shelley Levene is not the Baal Shem Tov. There’s no significant cultural awareness required for the part beyond an ear for Mamet’s rhythms and a high tolerance for yelling.

Odenkirk, who played an Irish Illinoisan posing as a Jew for 10 seasons of television, is perfectly suited to play “the Machine” Levene, a man whose efforts to succeed likewise reach desperate, extralegal extremes.

Jew and gentile alike know what it feels like to be a loser, to need money, to have a long run of bad luck. Those experiences, much like cursing, create a universal language.

A man is his job, and Odenkirk will do his. The show is set to open in the spring of 2025 and will, no doubt, be closing (always) sometime later that year.

Source: BroadwayWorld, Playbill