Know Theatre does first-rate job with provocative play

Reviewed by George Basler

When David Mamet’s Oleanna first opened 20 years ago, fistfights reportedly broke out in the theater lobby. The two-character play is designed to provoke intense arguments, debate and even anger. The riveting production that runs through Sept. 30 at the KNOW Theatre in downtown Binghamton does just that.

Tim Gleason and Amoreena Wade do first-rate jobs in portraying Mamet’s flawed characters whose misunderstandings and failure to communicate honestly escalate to violence. Director Brandt Reiter keeps the interplay between the characters moving at a fast pace — the key to making a Mamet play work — as the tension rises through the three scenes.

KNOW Theatre successfully tackles controversial play

Reviewed by George Basler

Violence is on display at the KNOW Theatre in downtown Binghamton. The instruments aren’t guns or knives, but verbal cruelty and desperation that can warp human beings.

This desperation is the main theme of KNOW’s first-rate production of David Mamet’s controversial, 1984 Pulitzer prize-winning play, Glengarry Glen Ross. Set in a Chicago real estate office, the play focuses on a group of salesmen willing to go to any lengths to survive in the dog-eat-dog world where the highest- grossing salesman wins a Cadillac, and the losers get sacked.