Product Description

"An ear for reproducing everyday language has long been David Mamet's hallmark and he has now employed it to skewer the dogmatic, puritannical streak which has become commonplace on and off the campus. With Oleanna he continues an exploration of male-female conflicts begun with Sexual Perversity in Chicago in 1974. Oleanna cogently demonstrates that when free thought and dialogue are imperilled, nobody wins." (Michael Wise, Independent) In Oleanna "John and Carol go to it with hand-to hand combat that amounts to a primal struggle for power. As usual with Mamet, the vehicle for that combat is crackling, highly distilled dialogue unencumbered by literary frills or phony theatrical ones." (Frank Rich, International Herald Tribune)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48497 in Books
• Published on: 1993-06-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

With great power - also comes great responsibility...
It is easy to fall into the belief that Mamet's talent is all in the dialogue, because, yes he is a sharp talker, a wisecracking,sharp shooter - but beyond this, he trades in the currency of ideas. His language may well be of the every day, and anyone who has seen "Glengarry Glen Ross" will be familiar with the style, which is, in short, with no pause for thought, Harold Pinter with balls. But it is a disservice to say he is a writer who is all words and no action.
In "Oleanna" the central theme is familiar - that with great power, comes great responsibility. A two hander, this play is tight. There is nothing superfluous. John, a college professor on the brink of career success, is confronted by student Carol who, as inarticulate as she is, finds a way of forcing him to face the facts that his generation has let down those whom he has - at least an implicit- responsibility to. Between their two viewpoints the drama, and conflict, derives.
This play is awe inspiring in that Mamet is able to pull off, with such economical means, a story which will leave you questioning generational interecation, the legitimacy of higher education, the nature of where one's responsibilities lie, and a whole host of questions around semantics.
Whether one watches this as a performed stage play, or reads it, there is a small intake of breath each time Mamet manages to turn the screw- and while you may well pride yourself on knowing where the course of such drama leads, this will leave you breathless. Even after the climax of the action, you will be questioning both protganists points of view, and find both of them both innocent, and guilty...
A deeply provocative piece which will have you questioning your own assumptions and values again and again - surely there are few dramatists alive today that force one to confront the uncomfortable trtuhs which our PC vocabulary runs shy of?

A brilliant play about the power of language
This play is simply brilliant.

It is a play precisely about language, about how it can be mis-applied and manipulated, twisted and misunderstood. The two characters, John and Carol, enter a battle of words, one that proves that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

It's simple structure and staging allows the language to take centre-stage, and it is this that keeps us gripped throughout. I recently saw the revival in the West-End starring Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles, and it was superb.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys intellectual drama that offers the audience a lot to think about.

A modern classic
Mamet's master-craftsmanship is never more in evidence than in this absorbing play. The seemingly staid, mundane setting of an all-American college campus provides a perfect contrast for the confrontation that is about to explode between the play's only two characters, a college lecturer and a student. Mamet pulls no punches, dealing head-on with issues like sexual politics, gender warfare and even the socio-economic divide, but the central theme is power, and the playwright meticulously weaves a frighteningly realistic scenario wherein power changes hands in almost-imperceptible ways, and the 'balance of power' becomes a real knife-edge! Mamet, a master of the language, uses it here to great effect, with machine-gun-like staccatto and short, punchy interchanges echoing the violence of the confrontation. His choice of the education system as a backdrop for the action is no accident, since the theme of power, besides being framed in terms of gender, is also explored in the educational context, via an examination of education as empowerment, the educator as a wielder of power (at least initially) and the student as vulnerable and powerless. The reader's emotions and sympathies are fully engaged at all times, and he or she is likely to be left feeling harrowed and torn - but definitely educated.