...Glengarry Glen Ross at Nottingham's Lace Market Theatre - what to expect

David Mamet's masterpiece Glengarry Glen Ross, which has won both the Pulitzer Prize and Olivier awards, runs at Nottingham's Lace Market Theatre during April. Director Gordon Parsons explains why it is essential theatre.

What is the play about?

Basically, four colleagues (definitely not friends) in a real estate office are forced by their (unseen) superiors into a sales contest to win a posh car. The runner-up prize is a set of steak knives and the remaining two are fired. This is particularly distressing for the oldest salesman as he has a daughter in hospital and no pension. Also, thirty years ago, he was the number one salesman but now times have changed. It is similar in its main theme to Death of a Salesman but it's much shorter, running at just over eighty minutes plus interval.

Has the play, first performed in 1983, any relevance to the real estate/property business in Britain today?

Although it's set for the main in a real estate office, the play has much wider implications. Indeed, the first scene is set in a Chinese restaurant and throughout the play there are references to the need to eat. Metaphorically, the characters eat one another as the competition highlights the sheer brutal need for survival and how that brings out the animal in us. It's about a world where trade is king. To quote Death of a Salesman: "it's a rough world", which is a bit of an understatement as far as this feral play is concerned.

Why do you think Mamet's play won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984?

It's because the play, although short, packs a terrific, terrifying and shocking punch. The writing is brilliantly evocative of four men reduced to verbal violence because of the sheer need to survive in a cruel unsympathetic world. It also poses a difficult moral question. If your next meal depended on your selling worthless land to an unsuspecting elderly couple who had all their assets in safe Government Bonds, what would you do?

Why has it taken The Lace Market Theatre over 30 years to put on this play?

Cowardice? It's an all male cast and they are rarely popular with our acting members. It's also very difficult to maintain an atmosphere where conflict has to be consistently maintained. Glengarry Glen Ross is actually the fourth Mamet play we've done and, in my view, it's his best.

What made you want to direct it?

Ever since I saw John Neville in Death of a Salesman at the Playhouse in 1967, I've been in love with American drama. I've worked on O'Neill, Williams, Miller and Albee and so it seemed natural to move onto their acknowledged successor. It's a great play and in its eighty minutes contains pretty well all the major themes of American drama.

What have been the major challenges in staging the play?

Creating two sets. Also, sustaining the fast pace throughout the eighty minutes and achieving in such a short time an atmosphere of hope, desperation, contempt (for each other and for the system), and finally, humour in this most challenging of plays. I have to say that the cast have all shown tremendous dedication to the cause and this must rank as one of the most powerful (and disturbing) plays I've ever directed.

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