Oleanna: A Play (First Edition)

David Mamet

ISBN 10: 0679424113 / ISBN 13: 9780679424116

Published by Pantheon, New York, 1992

About this Item

First Edition. Basis for the haunting 1994 film, written for the screen and directed by Mamet, starring William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon. Fine and unread in a Fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 128431

Bibliographic Details

Title: Oleanna: A Play (First Edition)

Publisher: Pantheon, New York

Publication Date: 1992

Binding: Hardcover

Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

Edition: First Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

In David Mamet's latest play, a male college instructor and his female student sit down to discuss her grades and in a terrifyingly short time become the participants in a modern reprise of the Inquisition. Innocuous remarks suddenly turn damning. Socratic dialogue gives way to heated assault. And the relationship between a somewhat fatuous teacher and his seemingly hapless pupil turns into a fiendishly accurate X ray of the meechanisms of power, censorship, and abuse.

Review:

"An ear for reproducing everyday language has long been David Mamet's hallmark and he has now employed it to skewer the dogmatic, puritannical streak which has become commonplace on and off the campus. With Oleanna he continues an exploration of male-female conflicts begun with Sexual Perversity in Chicago in 1974. Oleanna cogently demonstrates that when free thought and dialogue are imperilled, nobody wins." The Independent, Michael Wise "John and Carol go to it with hand-to hand combat that amounts to a primal struggle for power. As usual with Mamet, the vehicle for that combat is crackling, highly distilled dialogue unencumbered by literary frills or phony theatrical ones." International Herald Tribune, Frank Rich 'Can anverbal assault be construed as rape? Of given Mamet's dazzling play on the ambiguity of language, does it constitute any situation where no is taken to mean yes?' Guardian - Alfred Hickling, 20.11.10