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Oleanna
By Patrick Brady
David Mamet's Oleanna is theater stripped of anything extraneous. Two characters, one room and two desires. Just a college professor and a student in conference. The college professor-Bill Pullman's John-rambles in self-aggrandizing monologues that never quite get off the ground for all the interruptions; he attempts to speak in the lofty tones that he imagines a college professor should speak, but can't make himself understood. The college student-Julia Stiles' Carol-is failing John's class. She doesn't understand the textbook he wrote.
The outside world intrudes into the one-on-one meeting through the telephone that keeps ringing. We learn that John is about to be granted tenure, that he's buying a house, that he is realizing his dreams.
Initially, the audience is led to believe that John just wants to teach and Carol just wants to understand. However John quickly reveals his concern that he overcome his childhood identity as a failure. Achieving tenure can assure him of that sense of success, which he can't quite award himself.
Carol says she wants to understand. She wants to understand what John is saying, what the course objective is, but in the second act the audience learns that she wants less to understand that to be understood, or more specifically, to be heard.
At its core, Oleanna is a play with two concerns: perception and power. John perceives Carol to be lost and he believes he can help her. Carol perceives John to be the perfect foil for expressing her views, advancing her agenda. The audience perceives John to be out of touch and either well meaning and misguided or abusive and sexually harassing. They perceive Carol as either manipulated or manipulator. It just depends where you sit.
Oleanna premiered in 1992, a year after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings, during which, he was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. His alleged abuse of power and her attempt to find redress through the hearing process is the backdrop to the tension between teacher and student in Oleanna.
The struggle for power is the engine that drives the drama. John abuses his power as a teacher by failing to make himself clear while rebelling against the system, calling teaching "hazing." In his attempts to subvert the traditional teaching process he also subverts the clarity students need to comprehend the material.
Pullman's John is anxious, full of himself, needy, but readily apparent from the first act. Stiles' Carol is gradually revealed in each act. Initially she seems a mousy college student, unprepared for college. In the second act, she is poised, direct and confident. In the final act her true nature is revealed.
The audience is forced to answer question upon question. Does she deserve to fail? Does she belong in college? Was that sexual harassment? Was he abusing his power? Is going to the tenure committee the reasonable thing to do? Are his actions just inappropriate or do they constitute rape? What is just punishment? And finally, is there a difference between misusing power and abusing power and who has actually abused it?
Oleanna derives its title from a song of the same name. The 19th century folk tune is a utopian vision of a better world. This Oleanna is nothing of that. While politically correct, it is a dystopian world where abuser and abused can easily be confused.
Do not miss this. It may be the most riveting performance you ever see.
Oleanna
Starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles
Directed by Doug Hughes
Showing at the Mark Taper Forum through July 12th