Oleanna at The Gladstone

Published: Nov. 3, 2019, 12:45 p.m.

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Oleanna is a two-character play by David Mamet, 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\'s title, taken from a folk song, refers to a 19th-century escapist vision of utopia. Mamet later adapted his play into a film of the same name. John P. Kelly, Director, talk about the play that runs at the Gladstone Theatre Ottawa . Guy Buller and Madeleine Jullian take on the part which opens on Nov 7th - Nov 16th.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oleanna ... is an impassioned response to the Thomas hearings. As if ripped right from the typewriter, it could not be more direct in its technique or more incendiary in its ambitions. In Act I, Mr. Mamet locks one man and one woman in an office where, depending on one\'s point of view, an act of sexual harassment does or does not occur. In Act II, the antagonists, a middle-aged university professor and an undergraduate student, return to the scene of the alleged crime to try to settle their case without benefit of counsel, surrogates or, at times, common sense.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The result? During the pause for breath that separates the two scenes of Mr. Mamet\'s no-holds-barred second act, the audience seemed to be squirming and hyperventilating en masse, so nervous was the laughter and the low rumble of chatter that wafted through the house. The ensuing denouement, which raised the drama\'s stakes still higher, does nothing to alter the impression that "Oleanna" is likely to provoke more arguments than any play this yearTickets at http://www.thegladstone.ca

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