Oleanna (play)
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2008-07-08T14:07:40Z
Bearian
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2nd cite, ce
'''''Oleanna''''' is a two-character [[Play (theatre)|play]] by [[David Mamet]] about the power struggle between a [[university]] [[professor]] and one of his female students who accuses him of [[sexual harassment]] and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded [[tenure]]. The play's title, taken from a [[Oleanna (song)|folk song]], refers to a 19th-century [[escapism|escapist]] vision of [[utopia]].<ref name="nytimes">[http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9E0CE1DF1E3CF935A15753C1A964958260 Mamet's New Play Detonates The Fury of Sexual Harassment], an October 26, 1992 review by [[Frank Rich]] of ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref> <ref name=parker>Parker, Kathleen, syndicated column of July 8, 2008, "While we wait, Bush says little," ''[[Albany Times Union]]'', July 8, 2008, at A11, also found at [http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080708/OPINION03/807080304/1007/rss07 "Bush's dreamscape," by Kathleen Parker, on the Detroit News website]. Accessed July 8, 2008.</ref>
The play [[1992 in literature|premiered in May 1992]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] as the first production of Mamet's new [[Back Bay Theater Company]]<ref name="society">[http://mamet.eserver.org/review/1994/Oleanna.html Oleanna debuts at Cambridge Mass.], from the website of the [[David Mamet Society]]</ref>. The premiere featured [[William H. Macy]] as John, a "smug, pompous, insufferable man whose power over academic lives he unconsciously abuses"<ref name="society" />. [[Rebecca Pidgeon]] played the female lead, Carol, "Mamet's most fully realized female character, ...a mousy, confused cipher" whose failure to comprehend concepts and precepts presented in John's class motivated her appeal for personal instruction<ref name="society" />. The part of Carol is said to have been written for Pidgeon<ref name="society" />.
In October, a year after the [[Anita Hill]] - [[Clarence Thomas]] hearings<ref name="nytimes" /> which "crystallized and concretized"<ref name="society" /> Mamet's dramatization, it appeared [[off-Broadway]] at New York City's [[Orpheum Theatre]], with Macy and Pidgeon reprising their roles. The production included a rewritten third scene<ref name="society" />. Critic [[Frank Rich]] provides a summary of the play in his review of the off-Broadway production:
:''Oleanna'' ... is an impassioned response to the Thomas hearings. As if ripped right from the typewriter, it could not be more direct in its technique or more incendiary in its ambitions. In Act I, Mr. Mamet locks one man and one woman in an office where, depending on one's point of view, an act of sexual harassment does or does not occur. In Act II, the antagonists, a middle-aged university professor and an undergraduate student, return to the scene of the alleged crime to try to settle their case without benefit of counsel, surrogates or, at times, common sense.
:The result? During the pause for breath that separates the two scenes of Mr. Mamet's no-holds-barred second act, the audience seemed to be squirming and [[hyperventilation|hyperventilating]] ''en masse'', so nervous was the laughter and the low rumble of chatter that wafted through the house. The ensuing denouement, which raised the drama's stakes still higher, does nothing to alter the impression that "Oleanna" is likely to provoke more arguments than any play this year.<ref name="nytimes" />
It had its London premiere at the [[Royal Court Theatre]] in [[1993]], directed by [[Harold Pinter]]<ref name="pinter">[http://www.haroldpinter.org/directing/directing_oleanna.shtml Oleanna by David Mamet, The Royal Court Theatre, 24 June 1993], from the official [[Harold Pinter]] website</ref>. [[David Suchet]] played John (in a [[Variety Club Award]]-winning performance<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2045670.stm Suchet: Dark star], a June 2002 [[BBC]] article</ref>), and [[Lia Williams]] played Carol, in a version that used Mamet's original ending from the Cambridge production. As Pinter notes in personal correspondence to Mamet that Pinter also published on his website:
:There can be no tougher or more unflinching play than ''Oleanna''. The original ending is, brilliantly, "the last twist of the knife". She gets up from the floor ("Don't worry about me. I'm alright") and goes straight for the throat. The last line seems to me the perfect summation of the play. It's dramatic ice<ref name="pinter" />.
[[Michael Billington (critic)|Michael Billington]], in a review published in ''[[The Guardian]]'', endorsed Pinter's choice of ending, saying "by restoring Mamet's original ending, in which the professor is forced to confess his failings, Pinter also brings out the pain and tragedy of the situation"<ref name="pinter" />.
''Oleanna'' was [[film adaptation|turned into a movie]] directed by Mamet, starring Macy and [[Debra Eisenstadt]]. [[Roger Ebert]], whose review of the film<ref name="ebert">[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19941104/REVIEWS/411040303/1023 Ebert's review of the film version of ''Oleanna''], from the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' website</ref> is primarily about the off-Broadway production he saw over a year earlier, was "astonished" to report that ''Oleanna'' was not a very good film, characterizing it as awkward and lacking in "fire and passion"; this is in contrast to what Ebert wrote about the performance of the play he saw at the Orpheum:
:Experiencing David Mamet's play "Oleanna" on the stage was one of the most stimulating experiences I've had in a theater. In two acts, he succeeded in enraging all of the audience - the women with the first act, the men with the second. I recall loud arguments breaking out during the intermission and after the play, as the audience spilled out of an off-Broadway theater all worked up over its portrait of . . . [[sexual harassment]]? Or was it self-righteous [[political correctness|Political Correctness]]?<ref name="ebert" />
More recently, a 2004 production<ref>[http://www.playbill.com/news/article/85713.html Stiles and Eckhart to Clash In London Oleanna, Opening April 22], a 2004 ''[[Playbill]]'' article</ref> at the [[Garrick Theatre]] in London, featured [[Aaron Eckhart]] and [[Julia Stiles]]<ref>[http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1201708,00.html Review of ''Oleanna''] from ''[[The Guardian]]''</ref> and was directed by [[Lindsay Posner]].
==References==
<references />
==See also==
*[[Sexual harassment in education]]
*[[Pretty Persuasion]]
*[[Oleanna (song)]]
==External links==
* [http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/oleanna/ Study Guide for ''Oleanna''] from [[SparkNotes]]
* [http://www.mcclernan.com/mcclernan/oleanna.asp History is Written by the Winners, a critical analysis of ''Oleanna'' by playwright N.G. McClernan]
{{Mamet}}
[[Category:1992 plays]]
[[Category:David Mamet plays]]
[[fr:Oleanna]]