Oleanna (play)

Last updated

Oleanna
Broadway Theaters 45th Street Night.jpg
View of Broadway Theaters on 45th Street at night with Oleanna Marquee visible
Written by David Mamet
Date premieredMay 1992
Place premiered American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Original languageEnglish
GenreDrama

Oleanna is a 1992 two-character 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 folk song, refers to a 19th-century escapist vision of utopia. [1] Mamet adapted his play into a 1994 film of the same name.

Contents

Plot summary

Act I

Carol, a college student, is in the office of her professor, John. She expresses frustration that she does not understand the material in his class, despite having read the assigned books and attending his lectures. Of particular concern is a book written by John himself, wherein he questions the modern insistence that everyone participate in higher education, referring to it as "systematic hazing". While talking with Carol, John is often interrupted by the phone ringing. He is about to be granted tenure along with a handsome raise. Anticipating this, John is about to close on a new house, but his wife repeatedly calls with last-minute issues, demanding that he meet her at the home as soon as possible.

After initially appearing insensitive, John eventually decides to help Carol, telling her that he "likes her" and that he also felt similar frustrations as a student. He takes the blame for her not understanding what he is talking about and agrees to give her an "A" if she returns to his office several more times to discuss the material. At one heated point in the discussion, he goes to put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but she violently shakes it off. Finally, Carol has warmed to John and is on the verge of divulging a secret when the phone rings again and John's wife tells him that the realtor problems were all a scheme to get him back to the house for a surprise reception in his honor. He departs for home immediately.

Act II

Carol is back in John's office, but more poised than before. His tenure is threatened because Carol has filed a formal complaint with the committee, accusing him of sexual harassment. She has documented daily occurrences of sexist remarks by John toward his students and describes his offer of giving her an "A" if she agrees to meet with him privately in his office. John hopes to resolve the matter privately with Carol so that the complaint may be withdrawn from the tenure committee, saying he does not understand how his actions could have offended her and attempting to convince her that he was only trying to help her without any ulterior motive. Carol decides it is best that she leave, but John stands in front of the door and grabs hold of her. Carol screams for help.

Act III

John has been denied tenure and suspended, with a possible dismissal, and is packing up his office. He has not been home to see his wife and family, staying at a hotel for two days trying to work out in his head what has happened. He has asked Carol to speak to him once more and she has obliged. Carol is even more forceful in naming her instructor's flaws, finding it hypocritical that a college professor could question the very system that offers him employment and gives him an academic platform to expound his views. She also refers to "her group", on whose behalf she speaks and from whom she seems to be getting advice and support as she files her complaints.

In passing, John mentions that he has not been home recently. Carol reveals that if he had, he would have learned that her charges against him now amount to attempted rape. Carol offers to drop her charges if John would agree to her group's list of books to be removed from the university, which includes his own. John refuses, angrily telling her to leave his office as his phone rings again. It is his wife, whom he affectionately calls "baby". Carol tells him not to refer to his wife that way. This causes John to finally snap completely and he savagely beats her, screaming obscenities and holding a chair above her head as she cowers on the floor. As John calms down, realizing what he's just done, he says, ". . . well . . ." The play ends with Carol saying, "Yes...that's right."

Variations on the ending

There have been several endings produced for the end of Act III. In the original Cambridge production in May 1992, after John beats Carol, she stands and a defeated John reads a confessional statement that Carol has prepared. In the Fall 1992 production in New York, the ending is shortened, and after the beating, Carol ambiguously says "Well", and John responds "Yes. That's right". In the 1993 London production directed by Pinter, the director restored the longer Cambridge ending. The 1994 movie adaptation directed by Mamet uses the briefer ending, but after Carol says "Well", John replies "Oh my God". [2]

Themes

The principal themes of the play have centered on the overall comparison to the Anita HillClarence Thomas debate during the Supreme Court hearing of the future Justice, and the amount of veracity which could be associated with the male side of the debate and the amount of veracity to associate with the female side. [3] In the audio commentary for the Criterion DVD edition of another Mamet film, Homicide , Mamet stated that the theme of group affiliation was central to his portrayal of Carol when she announces her joining the activist group on campus. [4]

Original productions

The play premiered in May 1992 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the first production of Mamet's new Back Bay Theater Company. [5] The premiere featured William H. Macy as John, a "smug, pompous, insufferable man whose power over academic lives he unconsciously abuses". [5] Rebecca Pidgeon played the female lead, Carol, described by one critic as "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. [5]

In October, a year after the Anita HillClarence Thomas hearings [1] which "crystallized and concretized" [5] 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. [5] 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 the 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 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. [1]

Oleanna's London premiere was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in 1993, directed by Harold Pinter. [6] David Suchet played John (in a Variety Club Award-winning performance [7] ), 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 all right") and goes straight for the throat. The last line seems to me the perfect summation of the play. It's dramatic ice. [6]

Michael Billington's review 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." [6]

Film adaptation

In 1994, Mamet directed his own film adaptation of Oleanna, starring William H. Macy and Debra Eisenstadt. Roger Ebert, whose review of the film is primarily about the off-Broadway production he saw over a year earlier, characterized the film as awkward and lacking in "fire and passion" compared to the play:

Everything I have written refers to the stage version of the play. Now we come to the film, directed by Mamet himself and essentially unchanged from the theatrical version. To my astonishment, it is not a very good film. I am not sure why. The original characters are there, and the situation, the dialogue, and even one of the actors (Macy) are the same as on the stage. But the material never really takes hold. It seems awkward. It lacks fire and passion. Watching it was like having a pale memory of a vivid experience. [8]

Revivals

A 2004 production [9] at the Garrick Theatre in London featured Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles [10] and was directed by Lindsay Posner. Stiles reprised the role of Carol in a 2009 production directed by Doug Hughes and co-starring Bill Pullman at the Mark Taper Forum. [11] On June 30, 2009, it was announced that this production would be transferring to Broadway's John Golden Theatre, with previews beginning September 29 before an October 11 opening night. [12] The show was originally supposed to close on January 3, 2010, but due to poor ticket sales the closing date was moved up to December 6, 2009. The show played 65 performances and 12 previews. [13] The play was put on stage at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv in the 2018-2019 season. The Hebrew translation belongs to Ehud Manor, the stage direction to Sarah von Schwartze, and the two roles are played by Dan Shapira and Joy Rieger.

Cancelled production

In 2014, a production of the play at Milwaukee's Alchemist Theatre was stopped after one performance when it received a cease-and-desist order from Mamet's representatives. The production had cast a man to play the character of Carol, making the play about same-sex sexual harassment. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Mamet</span> American playwright, filmmaker, and author

David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 1970s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His plays Race and The Penitent, respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.

<i>Equus</i> (play) 1973 play by Peter Shaffer

Equus is a 1973 play by Peter Shaffer, about a child psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses.

Oleanna is:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William H. Macy</span> American actor (born 1950)

William Hall Macy Jr. is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. His major roles include those in Fargo (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Air Force One (1997), Magnolia (1999), Mystery Men (1999), Jurassic Park III (2001), Cellular (2004), Bobby (2006), Everyone's Hero (2006), Wild Hogs (2007), and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Stiles</span> American actress (born 1981)

Julia O'Hara Stiles is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Stiles began acting at the age of 11 as part of New York's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Her film debut was a small role in I Love You, I Love You Not (1996), followed by a lead role in Wicked (1998) for which she received the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Award for Best Actress. She rose to prominence with leading roles in teen films such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Down to You (2000), and Save the Last Dance (2001). Her accolades include a Teen Choice Award and two MTV Movie Awards, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe Award, and Primetime Emmy Award.

<i>Glengarry Glen Ross</i> Play by David Mamet

Glengarry Glen Ross is a play by David Mamet that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. The play shows parts of two days in the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate agents who are prepared to engage in any number of unethical, illegal acts—from lies and flattery to bribery, threats, intimidation and burglary—to sell real estate to unwitting prospective buyers. It is based on Mamet's experience having previously worked in a similar office.

Lindsay Ann Crouse is an American actress. She made her Broadway debut in the 1972 revival of Much Ado About Nothing and appeared in her first film in 1976 in All the President's Men. For her role in the 1984 film Places in the Heart, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Her other films include Slap Shot (1977), Between the Lines (1977), The Verdict (1982), Prefontaine (1997), and The Insider (1999). She also had a leading role in the 1987 film House of Games, which was directed by her then-husband David Mamet. In 1996, she received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for "Between Mother and Daughter", a CBS Schoolbreak Special episode. She is also a Grammy Award nominee.

<i>Speed-the-Plow</i> 1988 play written by David Mamet

Speed-the-Plow is a 1988 play by David Mamet that is a satirical dissection of the American movie business. As stated in The Producer's Perspective, "this is a theme Mamet would revisit in his later films Wag the Dog (1997) and State and Main (2000)". As quoted in The Producer's Perspective, Jack Kroll of Newsweek described Speed-the-Plow as "another tone poem by our nation's foremost master of the language of moral epilepsy."

<i>State and Main</i> 2000 American film

State and Main is a 2000 American comedy film written and directed by David Mamet and starring William H. Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alec Baldwin, Julia Stiles, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, David Paymer, Patti LuPone, Clark Gregg, and Charles Durning.

American Buffalo is a 1975 play by American playwright David Mamet that had its premiere in a showcase production at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago. After two additional showcase productions, it opened on Broadway in 1977.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago is a play written by David Mamet that examines the sex lives of two men and two women in the 1970s. The play is filled with profanity and regional jargon that reflects the working-class language of Chicago. The characters' relationships come to be hindered by the caustic nature of their words, as much of the dialogue includes insults and arguments. The play presents "intimate relationships [as] minefields of buried fears and misunderstandings."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic Theater Company</span> Off-Broadway non-profit theater

Atlantic Theater Company is an Off-Broadway non-profit theater. The company was founded in 1985 by David Mamet, William H. Macy, and 30 of their acting students from New York University, inspired by the historical examples of the Group Theatre and Stanislavski.

<i>Edmond</i> (film) 2005 American drama film

Edmond is a 2005 American thriller film directed by Stuart Gordon and starring William H. Macy, based on the 1982 play Edmond by David Mamet. Mamet also wrote the screenplay for the film. Edmond features Julia Stiles, Rebecca Pidgeon, Denise Richards, Mena Suvari, Joe Mantegna, Bai Ling, Jeffrey Combs, Dylan Walsh and George Wendt in supporting roles. It was screened at several film festivals from September 2005 to May 2006, and had a limited release on July 14, 2006.

The Shawl is a four-act play by David Mamet. It premiered at the Goodman Theatre New Theatre Company in Chicago in 1985. The play concerns two men, John and Charles, who plan on defrauding Miss A out of her inheritance. The play scams and deceives to the very end, while emphasising the truth repeatedly.

Lia Williams is an English actress and director, on stage, in film and television. She has had television roles in The Crown, in May 33rd (2004) for which she was nominated for a BAFTA, and in The Missing (2016), Kiri (2016), His Dark Materials (2019–2022) and The Capture (2019–2021).

Soulpepper is a Toronto, Ontario-based theatre company founded to present classic plays. The following is a chronological list of the productions that it has staged since its inception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Pullman</span> American actor (born 1953)

William Pullman is an American actor. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater, he was an adjunct professor at Montana State University before deciding to pursue acting.

David Findley Wheeler was an American theatrical director. He was the founder and artistic director of the Theater Company of Boston (TCB) from 1963 to 1975. He served as its artistic director until its closure in 1975. Actors including Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Stockard Channing, James Woods, Blythe Danner, Larry Bryggman, John Cazale, Hector Elizondo, Spalding Gray, Paul Guilfoyle, Ralph Waite and Paul Benedict were part of the company.

<i>Oleanna</i> (film) 1994 film

Oleanna is a 1994 drama film written and directed by David Mamet based on his 1992 play and starring William H. Macy and Debra Eisenstadt. The plot concerns a contentious meeting between a student and a college professor. Macy reprised his role from the original stage production. The film was nominated for a Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

The Anarchist is a two-person play by David Mamet that opened on Broadway in 2012, starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger. The play shows an interrogation between a female prison parole review officer and a female former domestic terrorist. The title character, though fictional, is based on two female members of the 1970s American militant organization Weather Underground, Judith Alice Clark and Kathy Boudin, who both took part in the fatal 1981 Brink's robbery.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rich, Frank (October 26, 1992). "Mamet's New Play Detonates The Fury of Sexual Harassment". The New York Times .
  2. Silvius, Jill E. (2018). "The Power of (Four) Ambiguous Words: Print vs. Aural Endings in David Mamet's OLEANNA". The Explicator. 76 (1): 20–22. doi:10.1080/00144940.2018.1430682. S2CID   165997256.
  3. Sauer, David (January 6, 2009). David Mamet's Oleanna. Series: Modern Theater Guides. New York City: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-0826496461.
  4. Homicide, The Criterion Edition, DVD commentary.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Oleanna debuts at Cambridge Mass". The David Mamet Society. Archived from the original on April 18, 2008.
  6. 1 2 3 Oleanna by David Mamet, The Royal Court Theatre, 24 June 1993, from the official. Harold Pinter website
  7. Suchet: Dark star, a June 2002 BBC article
  8. Ebert, Roger (November 4, 1994). "Oleanna". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved July 10, 2022 via RogerEbert.com.
  9. Inverne, James (April 22, 2004). "Stiles and Eckhart to Clash In London Oleanna, Opening April 22". Playbill . Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  10. Billington, Michael (April 23, 2004). "Oleanna". The Guardian . Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  11. Varley, Eddie (May 30, 2019). "Photo Flash: Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum's OLEANNA". Broadway World . Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  12. Cox, Gordon (June 30, 2009). "'Oleanna' set for Golden Theater". Variety . Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  13. Diamond, Robert (December 1, 2009). "OLEANNA Moves Up Closing Date from January 3 to December 6". Broadway World . Retrieved July 31, 2015.
  14. Foran, Chris (June 20, 2014). "Mamet letter forces Alchemist to cancel 'Oleanna' after 1 performance". Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel . Retrieved December 12, 2019.