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Written by
David Mamet
Directed by
Lindsay Posner
Designed by Christopher
Oram
Cast
John
Aaron Eckhart
Carol
Julia Stiles |
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Garrick
Theatre
15 April
- 17 July 2004 |
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David Mamet's
Oleanna
is a powerful and disturbing play. It
has become a classic of its time because
of its subject: the destruction not
just of a career but of an educational
ethos and a whole range of possibilities
for ordinary human relationships, because
of a raw moment in the history of Political
Correctness and a certain kind of feminism.
The play records the moment when facts
about the relation of power to gender
changed. The story is simple in outline
though complex in its internal structure:
a college professor tries to help a
student having difficulties which are
more than merely academic, and she wrecks
his career by representing to the university
authorities his concern and efforts
at pedagogic help as sexual harassment.
At the end it becomes coldly clear that
she punished him precisely for not making
sexual overtures to her: but in the
implacable unravelling of their joint
tragedy there is a long moment when
his innocence has the complexion of
crime.
That
is the moment in the play when the opportunity
arises to see Carol, accurately and
chillingly played by Julia Stiles, as
in the right. After all, patriarchy
is itself a clear form of harassment;
the use of educational authority to
impose views and orientations on unformed
and confused minds might indeed be a
usurpation; the comfortable lives of
college professors with their wives
and expensively educated children living
in private houses can indeed seem evidence
of how they profit from the exploitative
and unequal relationship embodied in
institutions and practices of education
. Ironically, John (an excellent Aaron
Eckhart, exploring the range of John's
dilemmas as teacher, victim, innocent
oppressor, and finally angry avenger
with great conviction and strength),
takes just this radically critical view
of education himself: but Carol (๋and
her group': she is not alone in destroying
John's career) use this very fact against
him, saying that because they had struggled
to get to college they did not want
to be told by their professors that
education exploits them they wanted
the privilege of saying this themselves.
But in
the end the truth at the bottom of the
tale is that a toxic and vindictive
version of feminism destroys a man's
career because he is a man, and because
he cared too much about the duties of
a teacher. With the demolition of his
job, hopes, and perhaps marriage, goes
the demolition of his self-possession:
goaded too far, he hits her and knocks
her down: that, the closing moment of
the play, is when the wretched truth
of why she wants to crucify him becomes
apparent.
Julia
Stiles and Aaron Eckhart both have burgeoning
careers in American film. They are fine
actors; they inhabit their roles with
deep intelligence and richness, and
they are accomplished exponents of the
craft of the stage. They bring a new
audience into the West End theatre,
which is extremely welcome: an audience
of fans of their screen work. The evolving
tradition of American actors having
a spell in the West End is an excellent
thing, and this is a paradigm of it.
AC Grayling |
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