David Mamet wrote Oleanna in response to the rise of political correctness in American universities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It had a big impact at its premiere in 1992.
Thirty years on the impact has not diminished and, in the light of the #MeToo era, it could be argued that the play is even more pertinent. Male careers are even in more danger.
Lots of people are going to be very angry indeed. Who would want to be a male college professor on a campus today? In any charge of sexual harassment, the university, the media and the law will be on the side of the female.
An undergraduate, totally out of her depth and unhappy with her grades, blames her professor for her failure. She accuses him of being elitist, sexist, negligent, self-serving and pedantic. She says he performs rather than teaches.
She accuses him of exploiting and mocking the university system and failing in his responsibility to the students. She accuses him of misusing his power, sexual harassment, sexual exploitiveness and rape. The College authorities accept her charges and he loses tenure, job and home.
The girl, frightened, repressed, confused, abandoned, is transformed into a dangerous, vicious, revengeful little bitch by her off-stage committee, who start dictating what books can and cannot be on the university syllabus.
The audience, having witnessed exactly what happened, knows he is totally innocent of any sexual charges. The professor, who genuinely wants to help the student, remains sympathetic. True, he is preoccupied with his own personal problems and does not give the girl his undivided attention. Mamet’s dramatic use of the constantly interrupting phone calls is particularly effective.
The one moment the student gets any sympathy is when she says that he has no idea what it had cost her to get to college and what prejudices she had to fight at home and among her friends.
Oleanna is a modern American classic and this revival, directed by Lucy Bailey and excellently acted by Rosie Sheehy and Jonathan Slinger, is not to be missed by anybody who enjoys having something to discuss at length after they have been to a theatre.
