Rent Oleanna (1994)

Mamet Speaks - Oleanna review by Steve

This is a photographed stage play adapted by writer-director David Mamet from from his controversial off Broadway production. It's a provocation which uncomfortably probes the divisions of what is now called social politics. Naturally, we bring our own attitudes to the issues and this expects us to take a side. 

William H. Macy is the self-absorbed, middle aged university professor who patronises a female student at length about her personal problems, his new house purchase and the purpose of education. Debra Eisenstadt plays the flunking undergraduate who fights back against this patriarchal oppression.

The academic unravels when her protest/entrapment leads to his suspension. Which may already push buttons. And then it escalates... It's a two hander set in an office. The performances are effective, even if necessarily abrasive. It's not an easy watch as Mamet turns the screw on ultra-sensitive themes like gender, class and sexuality... 

And he puts its audience through the emotional wringer. Yet afterwards, it becomes more obvious this is a black comedy and the situations absurd... Then it might seem a little schematic. It is more like a wordy, dramatised thesis from an academic journal than pure entertainment. But on those terms, this is dynamite!