OLEANNA To 23 May.
Bolton.
OLEANNA
by David Mamet.
Octagon Theatre To 23 May 2009.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 13, 23 May 2pm.
Audio-described 20 May.
BSL Signed 21 May.
Runs 1hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 01204 520661.
www.octagonbolton.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden.
None’s right, all’s wrong in this brief stab of a play.
Truth apparently emerges in David Mamet’s 1992 play with US university student Carol’s final words. “Yes,” she repeats. But apparent enlightenment merely confirms pre-suppositions from the anonymous “group” who've constructed the theory round her allegations against her male tutor.
Their certainties about male/female relationships give Carol new confidence, expressed in Iqbal Khan’s Octagon revival through maturing vocal control and increasingly assertive clothing.
As she becomes more composed, John moves towards sartorial slackness. He’s a rotten teacher, something that has little directly to do with the allegations the group have doubtless scripted for Carol. But his offhand manner, dealing with an estate agent when he should be helping her, goes with an assumption of having all the answers.
Ignoring her evident distress, he talks at and through her. As for his offers to regrade her work if she’ll come to extra sessions with him, even the dialogue’s speed and disruptions can’t hide their potential inferences. But John, unwise and unseeing, cares only for his own position, though the play attempts to link this with wider values.
Designer Ciaran Bagnall backs the room, and its constricting vertical poles, with self-regarding mirrors. In the last scene bookshelves emerge alongside these. Not all the books in the Library of Congress can save John’s job, but the group’s demand to filter the recommended reading-list in line with their preconceptions is an attack on intellectual freedom. Unless John’s original list is based on his authority to recommend books skewed to his values. We never find out. It’s either the play’s strength that it leaves possibilities open, or its weakness that it presupposes values which will determine audience responses.
Khan includes that necessary factor in any self-respecting English Mamet production: Colin Stinton, the American actor thoroughly experienced in the writer’s style. And Kosha Engler finds both Carol’s vulnerability and later protective shield of certainty.
By the end there’s no chance of dialogue between them, as the physical violence shows. Here, it’s notably brutal, no opportunistic slap but a voyage across the stage leading to an extended assault. It makes the play Hobbesian – nasty, brutish and short.
John: Colin Stinton.
Carol: Kosha Engler.
Director: Iqbal Khan.
Designer/Lighting: Ciaran Bagnall.
Sound: Andy Smith.
Fight director: Kate Waters.
Assistant director: Guy Unsworth.
2009-05-11 04:09:54