Clarence Thomas has been a U.S. Supreme Court Justice since 1991, approved by the Senate in a 52-48 vote, the narrowest confirmation margin ever, amid a lot of sexual harassment discussion involving Anita Hill. A year later, "ripped from the headlines" in "Law & Order" style, "Oleanna" opened on Broadway as David Mamet's take on the hearings and the confirmation.
The searing drama opened last night as the first play of Hot City Theatre's 2012 season, and regardless of gender, it will make your skin crawl with pain and your toes curl in terror. Annamaria Pileggi's never-a-pause direction, and solid performances by John Pierson and Rachel Fenton make the 90-minute-no-intermission play speed by like the City of New Orleans through the Mississippi countryside.
The Broadway production, directed by the playwright, starred William Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon (Mamet's wife). The 1994 movie, also directed by Mamet, starred Macy and Debra Eisenstadt.
John's office, a small room with a desk piled with paper and the blue books even I used in college exams. He's seated at the desk. Carol, a rather plain co-ed, brown hair tied back, glasses on her nose, stands nearby. She doesn't understand, she says. What don't you understand, he asks. Everything, she says.
Turns out she claims not to understand anything from John's class, or John's book, or John's lectures. She says she's stupid. He insists she's not. They talk past one another. Neither appears to listen properly.
A phone interrupts often, mostly when tension is highest, or when an important statement is begun, a key question asked. From John's end, we learn that he and his wife are about to buy a fancy house, betting on the come that the college's tenure committee, meeting that day, will recommend him for tenure and a big raise. John, of course, is distracted. He tries to comfort Carol, but he's pompous and condescending, making foolish statements. She gets more and more frustrated; as she appears to lose it, he holds her arms, trying awkwardly to comfort her, but still keeping her at arms' length.
Confusion reigns. Disagreement? Certainly. Misunderstandings? Every phrase. Harassment? Damned if I know.
A blackout sends us into Act II. Or Scene II. It's a few days or a few weeks later (the program doesn't bother with a time line), and we're back in John's office. The tenor has changed. Carol, part of a group that sounds like one of Chairman Mao's truth squads, has protested to the university and to the tenure committee that John's behavior has been a clear case of harassment, ranging on the sexual. John is aghast. Stupid? Of course. Patronizing? Probably. Harassment? As I said earlier, Damned if I know.
Carol and her "group," their blood at a galloping boil, want John's scalp, and the rest of his skin, too. He's twisting in the wind, seeing his tenure gone, his house with it, maybe his job as well. Another blackout. John now is coming apart; his separation letter in his hands, Carol again in his office, gloating a little, but offering a deal. . . .
The acting is very good. Pierson, supercilious and pontificating in the early going, becomes a shadow. Fenton, whose star rises as his sinks, keeps everything simple, as befitting a college student, but power goes to her head as it did to his. Pileggi's direction is stripped clean of nonsense. Like a U-boat torpedo, it is on target and merciless. An excellent drama, not nearly as dated as I feared it would be. Mamet's dialogue crackles as sharply today as it did 20 years ago, and we'll get a chance to compare 1992 with 2009 when his drama, "Race," whose title makes the subject matter perfectly clear, opens at the Rep. on Feb. 10.
Oleanna, by David Mamet, produced by the Hot Ciy Theatre Company, opened Jan. 20 at the Kranzberg Theatre, to run through Feb 4
—Joe