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Oleanna David Mamet
The Back Bay Theatre Company, Cambridge, MA, 24 May 1992
David Mamet, in his new play Oleanna, probes themes of sexual and power relationships. The play, directed by Mamet, centers on the issue of power as a force revealed through the interplay of social and gender hierarchy.
In Act I, Mamet presents a college professor listening to a student complain that his teaching is vague, pedantic, and self-indulgent. In his drab office, this professor finds his attention divided between his shy student and a telephone, seeming to represent life outside. The pressures of acquiring tenure, buying a new house, and marital problems, are emblematized through the constant ringing of the phone by the teacher's wife (unseen in the play), often sounded during a crisis and adding to the intensity of the moment.
By the end of the first act, the professor, in a manner that is at once patronizing and genuine, agrees to...