Theatre Review: "Oleanna"
by Jonathan Warman
So I was intrigued to find that Oleanna does dig just beyond the surface of political correctness. Instead of pitting formidable opponents against each other, Mamet portrays two egotists mired in mediocrity: John (Bill Pullman) a male university professor and Carol (Julia Stiles) one of his female students. What limited power and insight the play has, comes from their very mediocrity. Watching them vying for power with words they don’t fully grasp, in worlds inevitably out of their control, we get a very strong feel for the proverbial “banality of evil.”
In 2009, the debate over “political correctness,” the topic of Oleanna, isn’t as vexed as it was when the play was written. On the plus side, PC has contributed to heightened sensitivity to the realities of racism, sexism and homo- and trans-phobia. And the more heinously punitive uses of PC have, I hope, heightened our collective “bullshit meters” when encountering poisonous idiots like Mamet’s John and Carol.
This insight comes more from the perspective of time, however, and not from director Doug Hughes’s admittedly tight production. Stiles has perhaps found the best angle for the least believable character, giving us a sense of violence and abuse in Carol’s background, which may inform her overblown reactions to John’s bumbling. Pullman’s John bumbles a little too much: this guy should be a little more of a stuffed shirt for the action of the play to make dramatic sense.
I liked this a lot more than last season’s American Buffalo and Speed-the-Plow. That’s not saying much, though—I really detested those two shows.
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