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Mamet lifted the title from another writer's work in which a utopia, Oleanna, ultimately collapsed. Mamet places his two character play in the utopian micro-society of a university.
Written in three acts, the first finds the professor, John, and one of his failing students, Carol, in his office. He is busy yelling on the phone to his wife about the closing on their new house. She waits obediently.
When Carol tries to get a word in edge wise, she struggles to tell her professor that she doesn't understand his class on Education. Many pontificating and pedantic examples later, she still doesn't get it and breaks down. "I'm stupid. Why am I here? Why do I bother?" John decides he must take a more personal approach. He tells her, in so many words, that the educational system is a farce, a game, politics. She is only concerned about her grade. "Fine. You have an A," he flippantly responds. He suggests she come to his office so they can start the class over from day one. She agrees, but leaves feeling very confused.
In act two, Carol returns with confidence not even hinted at in the first act. She is able to express herself very well, using very educated verbiage. She has brought charges against John, saying that he told her if she would come to his office every week, she would get an A, and a mess of other misunderstood comments, twisted and taken out of context. She refers to "her group" and the audience is led to believe they had a hand in helping her come up with the idea that John sexually harassed her. The charges will effect his upcoming tenure review. He tries to get Carol to back down, using every ounce of authority he has left. Carol, unknowingly, dangles his delicate oleanna from her fingers before his nose.
In act three, we find out John will probably not make tenure which will deny his family their new house and it is all due to Carol's false claims. She offers to drop the charges if he agrees to a list of her groups demands, one of them being to drop the requirement of buying and using his book for his class. After hitting the bottom, John decides not to give up what little dignity he has left. After another phone call from his wife, Carol demands that he not call his wife "Baby." This is the last straw. The play ends with John attacking Carol, throwing her into his desk and drawing a chair over his head. Carol is laying breathless and wounded on the floor, and he backs up, drops the chair, and slumps, defeated, into his own chair, bewildered that she has driven him to become the animal she says he is. By the end of Oleanna, the audience feels a bit beaten and defeated as well.
There were two problems I found with this production. First, Kirk Jackson as John and Melinda Thomas as Carol, had a very rough first act. Mamet writes dialogue in the way people talk, with unfinished sentences, interrupting each other, and starting and then retracting and starting again. Mamet does this to evoke realism. Unfortunately, Jackson and Thomas seemed very stilted in their back and forth banter. However, after a bumpy first act, Jackson and Thomas work very well off each other.
My second complaint is with Mamet himself. The sudden, unexplained transition of Carol from meek soft spoken student to articulate an educated co-ed was unbelievable. The audience is left trying to answer for how she could have changed. Did her group educate her? Was she just a decoy sent in to get dirt on John? I think Mamet leaves too big a whole for the audience to fill.
As for the technical aspects, the designers didn't have much room for creativity. The set was minimalist; just a desk, some chairs, a file cabinet and a phone. The floating, overhead florescent lights were a nice touch. The stage was lit evenly by Paul Black, but again, this wasn't a production to test one's technical talents. I did notice and enjoy the nice mood that was set with preshow and intermission tracks provided by En Vogue.
The most notable production aspect was costuming. Director Matthew Wiener portrayed power and weakness through the dress of his characters. Carol appears in a dress for act one; a shirt and vest with jeans in act two; and finally a blazer in the third. John goes from sport coat, to high gloss suit, to wrinkled and rolled up shirt sleeves.
Oleanna is a war of words, ideals, and the mind. Mamet intentionally wants to spark debate. It has been said that rape is an act of power, not sex. Oleanna is a play about power, though many may get sidetracked by the sexual harassment issue. Just as misguided youth are finding "respect" this days with guns against their oppressors, Mamet shows that false claims are one of the misguided ways some women are now gaining power.
I recommend Oleanna for those who like thought provoking theatre. I would even recommend it to those who don't, because this is an important play for our times that everyone should see it.
Actors Theatre of Phoenix continues Oleanna through March 31 in the Herberger's Stage West Theater. Call 252-TIXS for show times and ticket information.
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