Theatre
Oleanna
St James Cavalier

When personal views stand in the way of communication, disaster ensues. Pigheadedness and blinkered vision often lead people not only to misjudge each other but to desire retribution for what they consider to be a slight towards them. If a dialogue fails to help people reach an understanding, then the resultant conflict becomes a destructive force whose consequences might well be irreparable. David Mamet’s two-hander, Oleanna, which ran over the last two weekends, deals precisely with the antagonism between two people whose actions may be interpreted as a criticism of political correctness and an exposition of the lengths it takes to turn an argument to your favour.

Mikhail Basmadjian brilliantly played John, a middle-aged college professor who is so caught up in his own life to pay much attention to what his career really was about to begin with: his students. Caught in a flurry of preparations in buying a house with his wife to confirm his rising status at the University in the imminent tenure he expects; he comes across as a pompous, self-important man. He acts in the very same way his socio-educational lectures criticise the power struggle which the educational system is described as throwing us in – subjected to the power-lust of others. His posturing and pretentious language often amount to nothing in essence while the concepts he teaches could easily be simplified. Enter Carol, a confused and seemingly naïve but hard-working student portrayed by a poised and sensitive Maxine Calleja Urry, whose mindset is entirely dictated by those same educational norms which John lectures and warns against, but which he follows to the tee. Obsessed with “understanding” when she cannot even begin to fathom what it is that she is meant to understand, an avid note-taker, without really grasping the nuances of language, Carol visits John privately in his office on a quest to gain understanding and allay the rising panic she feels as the end of semester tests draw nearer while she is no closer to getting her head round the concepts in his module.

The two actors had no easy task before them – with a script that was complex because it involves stutters, reiterated words, the interruption of two lines of thought and most of all, two characters who cannot and will not understand each other’s view point, even though they both make an effort to, from where they’re standing. However, thanks to their perfect timing, they both managed to work the words to their advantage in more ways than one, for it is indeed, a battle of words – of word against word, where, from the first scene to the third, the transition of point-of-view and strength of character is clever and complex. Avidly taking notes in the first scene, Carol panders to John’s sense of aggrandisement while he attempts to solve her academic dilemmas but tutoring her one-to-one and in doing so, as she pressures him for concrete explanations, begins to expose his latent talent as a lecturer; but it is too little, too late.

Carol starts off on the precept that the educational system is cheating her of her right to understand, and in order to understand, she turns this feeling of having been wronged, of having her mind and her intelligence violated, to interpreting John’s words to her advantage – which shows that she actually has learnt what the educational power-struggle is all about. Using the notes she took on their first meeting she interprets them to suit her needs and transform the mental and psychological violence she feels that John’s academic jargon and attitude inflicted on her, into an accusation, in the second scene, of sexual harassment, culminating in charges of rape in the third scene. John keeps calling her to her office to try to resolve the issue before the University selection and ethics committee get wind of it, but it is too late and he becomes increasingly unhinged to the extent of genuinely becoming violent in the end, as he sees his dreams for a better career and a house go up in flames.

To say that the play is a two-hander is not quite right. Direction, dispensed wisely by Nanette Brimmer, played a crucial role in the denouement of the play’s three scenes, where Mr Basmadjian also managed to create at least two other characters simply by responding to the telephone conversations with his wife and his friend Jerry – a task hard enough in itself, which he accomplished very credibly and masterfully. With two actors on stage, direction becomes almost an act of choreography around a cleverly designed set – a faculty office which is meant to showcase greatness when in fact, all there is, is degeneration. Ms Calleja Urry gave an excellent debut performance in a main role, coupling maturity with control, resulting in well executed scenes of conflict where violence left the realm of the verbal and became physical towards the end.

The two actors’ dynamic and their skilful character development made it quite clear that they were at the top of their game and although their roles portrayed the sad impossibility of ever achieving the utopic ideal, on which the title is based, in the meeting of minds separated by age and sex; it certainly made for an excellent performance – this is the kind of theatre that keeps an audience captivated and engaged. Bravo!