Oleanna david mamet artist note: Sarah Wilson Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has had the same reaction when I’ve said I’m doing Oleanna. Their eyebrows shoot way up high and they say, “Oh”, except it takes a lot longer to say than it normally does. I said the same thing when I got the offer (followed quickly, of course, with “Yes!”). It’s an appropriate reaction – a loaded response to a loaded play. I think a friend of mine put it pretty well when she paused and added, “That’s intense.” Writing about Oleanna is difficult without getting into details, since there’s nothing I can say about it that I couldn’t argue the opposite. It’s precise and messy, infuriating and funny. It’s both political and deeply, deeply personal. It’s shocking, brutal and yet, I think, somehow very beautiful. As I write this, we’re just under three weeks into rehearsal, which I often find is an exhilarating time. You’re finding new things you didn’t expect, your head is buzzing with new ideas, you’re trying to let go of the old ones. You’re happy and you’re frustrated. You’re working. In a two-hander like this one the heat is always on, but if ever things start to feel a little too intense, it’s easy to look around the room and count my blessings: Mamet’s amazing script, my copy of which looks like I dropped it in the tub and tried to blowdry it – I didn’t, I swear; lovely, funny Diego; László, who has that rare and beautiful ability to say just the right thing; Nancy and Janet, our design team; making theatre. Really, when I think about it, what else can I say but, “Oh.”?
Sarah Wilson, Carol in Oleanna
photo: sandy nicholson
photos: sandy nicholson
oleanna david mamet
background notes
usa 1992
Production
cast
László Marton Director
Diego Matamoros John
Teresa Przybylski set designer
Sarah Wilson carol
Victora Wallace costume designer Lesley Wilkinson lighting designer
Perhaps the most controversial of David Mamet’s works, and certainly one of the most controversial shows of the 90’s, this play is said to have been inspired by the infamous confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A former employee named Anita Hill testified that he behaved, as we say now, inappropriately in the work place. Every moment of the hearing was televised and the country was shocked, appalled and riveted. It ignited a national debate: did Thomas’ language constitute sexual harrassment or was that taking so-called political correctness too far? In this unflinching play David Mamet presents three encounters between a professor and a young student who is failing his course and asks the audience to consider: what is sexual harrassment? Who in this situation is right? Or are they both right and both misguided, both blinded and both wounded? Is the professor guilty only of arrogance, or is he actually abusing his position? Is his student merely the confused puppet of an unscrupulous political group, or has she been ignored and marginalized by the man who was supposed to educate her? As the punchy tagline for the film version frames it: He said it was a lesson. She said it was sexual harrassment. Whichever position you take, you’re wrong. Typically for Mamet, power in this play is located in the language. No writer wields language with more deadly, pinpoint accuracy and here he uses it to sharply define the two characters – or combatants – and their positions. At first, John is a pompous bulldozer, parading his knowledge, barely even bothering to listen to Carol. She seems confused and inarticulate, sometimes painfully so, unable to express clearly what is troubling her, why she can’t muster a passing grade. But in later scenes, she’s a powerhouse, her language precise, her opinions forcefully stated. She’s claimed her power and uses it, but she’s no more skilled or compassionate in the exercise of it than he is.
Richard Feren Sound designer Simon Fon fight director Nancy Dryden stage manager Janet Gregor asisstant stage manager
Like the political events it echoed, Oleanna rouses people. Some critics decried what they called a gross over-simplification of gender relationships and sexual harrassment. Others lauded its fiery exploration of the abuse of power. Audiences were often so stirred that they called out during performances or burst into applause when the female character was “put in her place”. Many felt that Mamet has stacked the deck in John’s favour. And yet. He wrote the role of Carol – generally regarded as his most well-developed female character – for his wife. The play’s title – taken from an old folksong – refers to a failed utopian community in America in the 1800’s. Is universal education a utopian idea? Is perfect gender equality a utopian idea? Everything in this exhilarating play resists easy resolution. It demands engagement (or is that enragement?). As Roger Ebert said, Oleanna “is one of the most stimulating experiences I’ve had in a theatre.” Prepare to be provoked.
production sponsor
Oleanna was first produced on the New York stage by Frederick Zollo, Mitchell Maxwell, Alan J. Schuster, Peggy Hill Rosencranz, Ron Kastner, Thomas Viertel, Steven Baruch, and Frank and Woji Gero, in association with Patricia Wolff. The Back Bay Theater Company production opened at the Orpheum Theatre on October 25, 1992. Oleanna is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. There will be one 20-minute intermission. Approximate running time 2 hours and 25 minutes.
Playwright Biography David Mamet was born November 30, 1947. After studying to be an actor, Mamet burst onto the scene as a playwright with the early one-acts The Duck Variations (1972) and Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) but it wasn’t until American Buffalo (1975) that Mamet gained national attention. Glengarry Glen Ross (1983, Soulpepper 2009 & 2010) cemented Mamet’s reputation as his generation’s leading playwright and garnered him the Pulitzer Prize. Other notable plays include: A Life in the Theatre (1977), Speed-the-Plow (1988), The Crypotgram (1995), November (2008) and Race (2009). He has also been Oscar-nominated twice for his screenplays: The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). Background Notes by Associate Artist Paula Wing.
soulpepper production Phil Atfield cutter
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull
Ina Kerklaan
Steve Hudak
sewers
scenic artist
David Rayfield
Duncan Johnstone
head scenic artist
painter
head of hair & makeup
Janet Pym, Natalie Swiercz dressers
Greg Chambers, Vanessa Janiszewski props builders
soulpepper thanks: Mar-Lyn Lumber Sales Ltd., Ontario Staging Ltd., Smartrisk.ca, Katie Crew, Ben Renzella, PRG Toronto. Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’Equity Association.
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