A Q&A with director Wilson Milam, at the helm of 'Glengarry Glen Ross'

It is easy to spot Wilson Milam in a crowd. He's the 6-foot-5 guy dressed in black, with shoulder-length hair.

And if his appearance is distinctive, so is his persona. He's a walker who thinks nothing of hiking from Seattle Center to the U District on a misty morning.

His unusual career trajectory has had him living and directing in London, to acclaim, and bopping over to Broadway to earn a Tony Award nomination (for mounting Martin McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore").

And back to his hometown of Seattle, where he directed a strong production of Conor McPherson's whiskey-drenched drama "The Seafarer" and is following up with a mounting of "Glengarry Glen Ross," David Mamet's iconic play about salesmen vying to peddle worthless Florida land parcels.

Milam recently chatted about that play, his life in the theater and his next move.

Q: You've directed a lot of major plays by such writers as McPherson, MacDonagh and Mamet, which focus on male power struggles. Why?

A: My mother used to say everything I did was about "a lot of men with guns." As a director you can get typecast, and if it's about guns and blood and men behaving poorly, they come to me. But "Glengarry" is one of the high peaks of modern drama. There are certain plays you have to do someday, and this is one of mine.

Q: What's it like to come back to work here, after so many years away?

A: I'm so grateful to be working in Seattle. And with this cast? I remember Bob Wright and John Aylward (both featured in "Glengarry Glen Ross") from back when I was a student at University of Washington. It's a real treat to finally work with them. They and the rest of the cast have such a trust level together, they can just let it rip.

Q: What's at the core of "Glengarry"?

A: The notion that in capitalism, somebody wins and everybody else loses. The difference coming in first and second is immense. The salesmen are just selling, but there are consequences attached to what you sell.

Q: Mamet's dialogue is famously jagged, with odd rhythms and unusual syntax. How do you help the actors to make it sound natural?

A: I'm a punctuation freak! Every contraction Mamet uses is meaningful. So we're spending a lot of time on that, and we have the "that police," to figure out his many uses of the word "that." I've spent hours just studying the grammar.

Q: After years in Europe, you're getting a lot of gigs in the U.S. Would you return to live here again?

A: Yes, it's time. I don't know where yet, but I'm a West Coaster. I prefer Seattle. I rail about how the city's changed, why they turned Second Avenue into a parking lot. But good friends are here, and family. The theaters are great. It's home.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com