Watching David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, you could be forgiven for missing the three-word motto that’s become synonymous with the play. Though “Always be closing” is emblazoned across the new Broadway production’s merch, only one of Glengarry’s hungry-eyed salesmen utters the phrase, and almost in passing — as if musing on an ancient proverb while listening to an older, more seasoned warrior enumerate his battle scars around the evening campfire. The play premiered in 1983, but that “practical sales maxim,” which also served as its epigraph, didn’t rocket to icon status till nine years later, when Mamet built a new monologue around it for the film adaptation. (To paraphrase one YouTube commenter, Hyundai—a company whose car Alec Baldwin’s character definitely does not drive—might still be recovering from the withering vitriol.) Another 30-odd years down the road, we all know “ABC,” but how much do we really remember about Glengarry?
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