By David Mamet
Starring Alistair McGowan & Clare Foster
Running Time: 90 Mins
Directed by Matt Aston
Designer: Laura McEwen
Lighting Designer: James Farncombe
Sound Designer: Damian Coldwell
Audio Described Performance:Thursday 21 April 8pm
with touch tour at 7.15pm
OLEANNA is often referred to as Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet’s most controversial drama. Electrifying dialogue and blazing emotion create a riveting play in which a college professor and his female student become embroiled in a war of words that takes a dangerous turn.
This powerful drama explores the destructiveness of miscommunication and excessive political correctness. It is a play about academic politics, student/teacher relationships and sexual harassment. As the power perilously shifts in this intelligent, vitriolic two-hander, language is used as both a tool and a weapon. Expect fierce debate about the use of power in academic circles.
“Mamet continues his exploration of male-female conflicts. John & Carol go to it with hand to hand combat that amounts to a primal struggle for power. The vehicle for that combat is crackling, highly distilled dialogue unencumbered by literary frills or phony theatrical ones.”
Frank Rich, International Herald Tribune
Production Shots by Alan Fletcher
CONTEXTUALISING EVENTS
Wednesday 20 April
6.30pm - 7.15pm
Mamet and His Contemporaries: American Theatre at the End of the Twentieth Century
Thursday 21 April
6.30 - 7.15pm
Learning to Fight: Violence and Education in Oleanna
Image design Tom Partridge Design