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Oleanna

Facts

September 9-21, 2002

Tue - Sat 8.00 p.m.

Theater Drachengasse

Fleischmarkt 22, 1010 Vienna

About the play

A female student unexpectedly comes to her male college professor's office to discuss her grades, but in a terrifyingly short time they become the participants in a modern reprise of the Inquisition. Innocuous-seeming remarks suddenly turn damning, dialogue gives way to heated assault. And the relationship between the teacher and his student turns into a frighteningly accurate X-ray of the mechanisms of power.

“Whichever side you choose – you´re wrong!”

About the author

Born on November 30, 1947, in Flossmoor, Illinois, David Mamet studied at Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York before venturing into the professional world of the theatre. He began his career as an actor and director before achieving success in 1976 with three Off-Off Broadway plays, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo.

The most recognized element of Mamet's style is his sparse, clipped dialogue. Although reminiscent of such playwrights as Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett, Mamet's dialogue is so unique that it has become known as "Mametspeak." His language is not so much "naturalistic" as it is a poetic impression of streetwise jargon. Other signature elements of Mamet's style include minimalism and a lack of stage directions.

Noted for his strong male characters, Mamet's plays often deal with the decline of orality in a world which has become an emotional and spiritual wasteland. In 1984, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross, which recreates the atmosphere of a gritty Chicago real estate office in which Levine, an aging salesman, is about to be sacked. He followed up in 1988 with Speed the Plow, which exposes the dirty underside of another industry – show business. Perhaps his most controversial play, however, came in 1992 with Oleanna, a two-character drama involving charges of sexual harassment between a male professor and one of his female students.

Mamet’s best-known stage plays include Duck Variations (1972), Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974), American Buffalo (1977), A Life in the Theatre (1977), Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Speed the Plow (1988), Oleanna (1992), The Cryptogram (1994) and Boston Marriage (1999).

In 1981, Mamet also turned his attention to screenwriting and made an impressive debut with his first screenplay, The Postman Always Rings Twice, which he adapted from the novel by James Cain. He has since turned out a number of critically acclaimed screenplays including The Verdict (1982), The Untouchables (1987), House of Games (1987), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Hoffa (1992), Oleanna (1994), American Buffalo (1996), The Edge (1997), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Wag the Dog (1998), Ronin (1998), The Winslow Boy (1999), State and Main (2000), Hannibal (2001) and Heist (2001) and is now considered to be among the industry's finest craftsmen.

Teachers

Teacher Material for all vienna theatre project productions is available in PDF format to download from this website. Please visit our Education section to find the required documents which are available free of charge.The material available includes background information about the author, the play, main themes, characters, reading suggestions, possible teaching objectives, dialogues for discussion, assignments and vocabulary (English-German).

For further enquiries please contact education@viennatheatreproject.at