Oleanna

Oleanna is a two-character play by David Mamet (1947-) [1]

The original play

A play about about the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students, who accuses him of sexual exploitation and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded tenure.

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 Hill–Clarence 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.

Performance history in South Africa

1993: Produced in South Africa in 1993 by Moira Blumenthal, directed by Terrence Shank, starring Guy de Lancey and Janine Eser.

1994: Staged in the Baxter Studio Theatre by arrangement with Quentin Productions in March 1994, directed by John Carson, with André Jacobs (John) and Lucinda Hooley (Carol). Design by Brian Collins, costumes Hazel van den Hoven, stage manager Sara Cohen.

2018: Produced by Eric Abraham and the Fugard Theatre at the Fugard Studio Theatre with Alan Committie and Nicole Fortuin.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleanna_%28play%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet

Baxter Theatre pamphlet, December 1993.

Oleanna theatre programme, 1994.

The Fugard Theatre <newsletter@thefugard.com> - Wed 2018/08/08 09:30 AM

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