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BY BRUCE APAR
When Bruce The Blog Watches… People Act!
GoJo Clan Productions Presents
OLEANNA
by David Mamet
With Duane Rutter, Julia Boyes
Directed by Robin Anne Joseph
Julia LaVerde, Production Stage Manager
Duane Rutter, Technical Director/Lighting & Sound Design
Michael Serpe, Fight Choreographer
Through March 17, 2019
Westchester Collaborative Theater
23 Water Street
Ossining, New York 10562
Order Tickets Online
$25 General; $20 Students + Seniors
As I was watching this barn burner of a stage drama, I found myself furiously scribbling in my notepad the choice morsels of dialogue that spring from the fertile and probing mind of Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet, best known for his trenchant take-down of hucksterism, Glengarry Glen Ross, which gave us the immortal line, “Coffee is for closers only.”
Julia Boyes is Carol, a college student, and Duane Rutter is John, her professor up for tenure. Photos by Robin Anne Joseph
In Oleanna, Mr. Mamet’s target is not disingenuous salespeople, but rather what he deems an equally offensive stain upon our social order: elitist educators and the system that justifies their abuse of power wielded over students.
That’s the fulcrum of his premise. On either end is a college professor, John, up for tenure, and a student, Carol, with low self-esteem, who summons the resolve to not only challenge her teacher but to jeapordize his career.
[It is somewhat uncanny that this Grade A production opened mere days before news broke of the college admissions scandal, which is nothing if not a grotesque symptom of how the powerful in an elite class can oppress the powerless in an underclass.]
Things start to go south when Carol takes exception to how John comports himself during a meeting. They see the situation from opposing points of view. It’s up to each audience member to decide who to side with. Couples who see the play rarely agree on whose position each supports.
Oleanna‘s battle royale pits institutionalized, patriarchal power against the highly subjective perception of what words mean. Hanging in the balance are what appear to be the author’s ambivalent musings on the sexual subtext of how we communicate with each other, both verbally and non-verbally.
When the professor drops phrases such as “white man’s burden” and “copulating” during a private meeting with his female student, is he being racist or sexist? To her, yes! To him, no! And so it goes, until the explosive climax, when their irreconcilable values devolve into the very human failing of primal flailing.
This intimate, powerful production proves that you don’t need big theaters to house big performances, which is what Duane Rutter and Julia Boyes deliver with impressive intensity and tightly focused theatricality. To not be riveted by their work throughout is to not be awake throughout.
The two talented actors could not be in better hands than those of Robin Anne Joseph, one of the finest theater directors in this region. Her keen insight into human behavior poignantly authenticates any production under her watch.
[NOTE: The author of this review is a paid marketing consultant for local businesses, including GoJo Clan Productions, who also regularly reviews local theater.]
Bruce “The Blog” Apar promotes local businesses, organizations, events and people through public relations agency APAR PR. He also is an actor, a community volunteer, and a contributor to several periodicals. Follow him as Bruce The Blog on social media. Reach him at bruce@aparpr.co or 914.275.6887.
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