OLEANNA

This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Joseph Weinberger Ltd.   Edinburgh Fringe Festival - 10 to 23 August 2009 at The Vault

Zimbabwe sits in an extraordinary position at present, the beliefs and ideals that had essentially built the stage for our collapse, have now themselves begun to shudder. To crack. To splinter. Much like John’s utopian fantasy, not able to withstand the barrage that comes with criticism, a world crumbles, subtly, brutally. And is Carol even real? Could she be the yang to John’s ying, now that all is coming to fruition? A mid-life crisis with a difference, no phallic vehicle, no yearning for youth, but a dangerous dabble with what once were deep set beliefs. Beliefs that now float barely below a surface, much like words on a page that are just read, or even spoken. Words that are meant to be understood and experienced. directed by :: heeten bhagat john :: kevin hanssen carol :: renee mostert Read the reviews: - Fringe Guru - EdinburghGuide.com

The name 'Oleanna'

The name 'Oleanna' is of Norwegian origin named after a settlement of idealistic people who settled in Norway to create what they believed was a Utopia. Needless to say the concept of 'Oleanna' failed because, "they all had ideals of perfect worlds and all came with a past and were therefore going in different directions; they destroyed each others lives". Relating to the play because it is, "a clash of ideals: John and Carol each ascribe to their own idealised paradise and in so doing, try to fix each other to the 'detriment' of themselves."

In the no mans land between misunderstanding and sexual harrassment,
we watch with impotent dread as the relationship between
professor and student entirely breaks down,
as their mutual respect evaporates and
an unbridgeable divide opens
which can only
destroy.

Mametspeak

David Mamet has been accused of recording real-life conversations and transcribing them - and so his true to life way of writing has come to be known as Mametspeak. This is the gender war, and more than that. It's the generation gap, and more than that. It's the class struggle, and more than that. During the New York run, audiences actually came to blows as they left the theatre. So powerful is David Mamet's writing. Time since has changed nothing ... Perhaps raised different questions, but changed nothing about how controversial every day life is ...

The word 'UNDERSTAND'
appears 38 times in this
script - more than any
other noun/verb in the
play.

What constitutes sexual harrassment?

Whose interpretation of a word or an action is to be privileged when interpretation itself is no longer grounded?
Can - or how can - language remain a viable means of human interaction in the period of enormous social and economic flux?
Can power be given away yet retained?
Does the exercise of power inevitably lead to abuses no matter who controls the levers of authority?
Are men and women doomed to remain adversaries forever, constantly battling for supremacy?

"The mediocre teacher tells,
The good teacher explains,
The superior teacher demonstrates,
The great teacher inspires."
-William Arther Ward

The Zimbabwean Situation

This production of Oleanna and its overt power struggle themes unashamedly reflects 'The Zimbabwean Situation'.
At the tail end of 10 years of battling for supremacy the questions "Does anyone really win?" "Is anyone really right?" make a lot of sense.
Possibly because consequences aren't certain off the stage, possibly because a situation like Oleanna is almost unbelievable to a Zimbabwean the play has significance.
Can ZImbabweans sue with the same liberality that an American might? Where does the law come in? Don't we deal with our own problems wherever we live, in whatever way we see fit? And who decides how to do this best?
Or possibly because this production of Oleanna was born in an environment where there is almost constant post-traumatic stress or depression, it makes sense, Zimbabweans can identify with David Mamet's deeply subtextual supremacy ping pong.

"There is so much good in the worst of us
and so much bad in the best of us,
that it's rather hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us."
-Sign in Springdale, Connecticut