The play goes on with Williamson telling Levene is is truly against company policy for him to just hand him the better leads. He says, "anybody falls below a certain mark I'm not permitted to give them the premium leads."(page 19) he is trying to tell Levene that you must be on the board to be considered for the top leads. He is not just allowed to hand them over. He needs to realize he has to work hard to receive the better leads. I really liked the line when Levene says, "you're giving me toilet paper."(page 21) showing that the leads he has been giving aren't worth anything. The only way he can get Williamson to consider giving him a better lead is by trying to offer him a percentage of his sales. After debating this over Williamson only agrees if he gets 20 percent and 50 dollars for each lead. Levene tries to argue this but knows he has to consider ever option or he will be fired. Then Williamson asks for part of the money that day but Levene does not have the cash on him, making Williamson change his mind. When Levene says, "my daughter..."(page26) I felt he was trying to start a pity story to try and get him to change his mind but Williamson does not fall for it and ends up leaving the restaurant.
The next scene switches to two other sales men, Moss and Aaronow, who are talking about customers that they do not like. Moss starts the conversation and says, "Polacks and deadbeats."(page 28). Polacks refers to people from Poland and obviously the deadbeats refer to the customers who are not buying. Moss goes on to say,"don't ever try to sell an Indian."(page 29). They feel that Indians never buy anything so really it is a waste of their time to even try selling to them. All they want to do is talk to them instead of really focusing on buying. Later on he also talks of someone hurting the men in charge of the company and says, "Someone should rob the office"(page 38). He feels this is necessary because he does not find it fair the way they run the office. The difference in prizes received at the end of the selling period is a bit extreme. I also think if is harsh to fire the two lowest in sales because some people may be like Levene and Aaronow and just be having a bad streak.
I found scene three to be every different from the other two. This scene came across in a much more direct and profound way. Roma starts asking many different questions and answering them all himself. When he says, "You fuck little girls, so be it."(page 47) it reminded me right about of the other stories we have read. "Lolita" being the first. I found all his questions to himself to be very direct and in some ways horrible to think about. I also noticed Lingk does not talk much at all throughout the scene. Most of the talking is done by Roma and his out look on life. I really liked when he said, "The true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear."(page 49). I like that he can live like freely and not worry about fear.
Act 2 was very long but interesting. The scene starts off with Aaronow and Williamson standing outside the office smoking. Roma then comes up and freaks out about the contracts and how he closed all of his and should be at the top of the board. He says, "Then I'm over the fucking top and you owe me a Cadillac."(page 54) I felt this was very strong. He keeps mentioning the Cadillac and it seems that is all he cares about. I did like in the next part when Aaronow is saying he isn't good because he hasn't been able to sell any and Roma says, "You're a, hey, you had a bad month. You're a good man, George."(page 57) . I liked that he was so reassuring to Aaronow and noticed that even if he hasn't been able to sell many lately he is still good at what he does and just hit a bad month.
During the next part Roma is still talking with Aaronow. They are talking about having to talk with the cop and tell there story. Aaronow seems nervous about having to talk to the cops and tells Roma he was not the guy that broke in. Roma then says, " Then don't sweat it, George, you know why? You have nothing to hide."(page 61) . I feel Aaronow might have lied considering he was suppose to be the one that broke in. Roma then says,"Always tell the truth. It's the easiest thing to remember."(page 61). When he says this I felt that Aaronow was keeping back what he actually did. Roma is obviously telling him the right thing to do, but I feel Aaronow is nervous because he knows he has to lie and that he might mess up his story.
We then encounter Levene who in the beginning was having a bad streak but has now broken it. He comes in raving about selling eight units and it was even to people who were suppose to buy for some of the other guys. He says, "...you have to believe in yourself..."(page 67). To me I felt that since he finally was able to focus on what he needed to happen to be able to keep his job everything finally paid off. I felt bad for Levene when Williamson says, "The only thing remarkable is who you made it to."(page 75) I felt this was beneath someone to say to him. He has been working so hard and trying to keep his job and this remark was just a stab in the back. All together I enjoyed the reading and found it to be a very interesting play.
No comments:
Post a Comment