Mamet play ‘Oleanna’ features Columbia alum, but still falls flat

It’s a good time to be a female student in the audience of the John Golden Theatre.

Students who make their ways to the just-opened production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” under the direction of Doug Hughes will be hit head-on with an ample dose of heady female empowerment, complete with allegations of elitism, chauvinism, and misuse of power aimed at a male humanities professor.

Mamet wrote “Oleanna” right after the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings on sexual harassment, and most likely intended to write an ambiguous he-said, she-said play, in which the audience members must come to their own conclusions about whether sexual harassment actually took place. Yet, despite the fact that sexual harassment plays a role in the plot, the major underlying theme is power dynamics between a teacher and a student.

Julia Stiles, in her Broadway debut, plays Carol, a student from a compromised background, who is on her way to flunking an ambiguously themed Anti-Establishment class taught by John (Bill Pullman). The entire 190 minutes take place in John’s mahogany-furnished office, with Carol first coming to enquire about a bad essay grade, and returning several times—originally under the pretext of allowing John to ‘re-teach’ his class in exchange for an A, and later on to discuss harassment charges that she presented to the school’s tenure committee.

Mamet’s dialogue is not easy listening—his withholding of information and frequent thought interruptions are frustrating for the audience, especially when handled badly by the actors. Stiles’ performance is uniform throughout most of the play—she portrays a vindictive Carol, angry from the minute she walks on stage, punching out each one-word line.

Pullman’s method, however, is the complete contrary. He deftly leaches out the subtleties in the language, achieving a natural rhythm with Mamet’s dialogue. Stiles’ acting becomes repetitive within the first act, as she consistently counter-punches Pullman’s refined and sensitive sentiments with bursts of rage and tears.

This mismatched performance results in a confusion of what kind of power dynamics Hughes intends to set up. There is no turning point, just John’s general decline and Carol’s minimal gain in confidence. Hughes hints at a shift in the dynamics of power through his conspicuous use of staging—Carol and John completely swap physical positions by the end of the play, as well as costume, with John’s becoming more and more disheveled while Carol dresses more professionally. But the dynamics are never fully there to begin with, there is no build-up or clue as to what we as audience members should see as the defining moment of the production—John just crumbles and Carol is an enraged female student who happens to get her way this time.

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