Feast for theatregoers

Look. The tests, you see, which you encounter, in school, in college, in life, were designed, in the most part, for idiots. By idiots. There is no need to fail at them. They are not a test of your worth. They are a test of your ability to retain and spout back misinformation…" says Professor John, from David Mamet's Oleanna, a play about a power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students.

The re-run of Oleanna, directed by Ifaz Bin Jameel, is the first of the six plays to be performed at the 'Noir – Extra Dark Theatre Fest', presented by StageLight&Magic this July. Oleanna will go on board at the Punchi Theatre, from July 6-8, at 7 p.m.

The entire play takes place inside Professor John's office at a nameless university. He is visited by his student Carol who seems to be struggling to grasp the concepts and precepts discussed in his class, and is thus questioning her intellect and basic ability to comprehend. John seems an ostensible liberal who scrutinizes the academy from a self-styled "outsider" perspective, standing on the threshold of the very economic security for which Carol longs. He focuses primarily on minimizing Carol's emotional pain rather than her ignorance. Pedantic and self-satisfied, John smugly assures Carol that she can have her "A" for the term, if she will meet with him a few more times so that he can answer her questions and raise her interest in the subject.

"What I have always liked about my role as Carol (the student) is that my role is very demanding and requires both myself and Feroze (the Professor) to go through an entire gamut of emotions in the duration of a mere one and half hours," says Swasha Perera enthusiastically. Being a two-member play, the performance is also quite challenging as we have been on stage during the entire course of the play. It's quite a drain, but it also helps you develop that much more as an actress, she added. "I feel Carol represents the powerlessness of all students (be it school or university) at the hands of their teachers and how much power teachers wield over them and the course of their lives," said Swasha emphatically.

The main themes of the play are political correctness, sexual politics, higher education and communication (or how language can be manipulated and used to one's advantage; almost like a weapon) and they are reiterated through out the play. The shift in power from the Professor to his student is quite apparent when considering Act One in relation to Act Two. To emphasise this further, Ifaz has created a sort of 'looking in from a window' perspective; almost like a metaphor for the shift in power, where the spotlight will move from the lecturer to the student as the play proceeds.

"We are playing it very different to conventional theatre; not abiding by the standard theatre rules as it were. The actors don't always play to the audience and most times tend to completely forget their existence," explained Ifaz. So much so that they even turn their backs to the audience at times. The conversation taking place between the lecturer and his student is very much like in real life and it almost seems as though the audience is listening in on a conversation going on in front of them.

"The main thing about this play is that nobody's really right or wrong. It all depends on the perspective with which you look at it," he says, adding, "the audience can act as the jury as the play should provoke some sort of arguments or discussion, enabling them to come to their own conclusions,” said Ifaz. Mamet has written the script very cleverly; that with the additional bonus of working with two actors like Swasha and Feroze, makes my life as a director a lot easier," said Ifaz with a smile.

"The professor losing power was quite gradual, whereas Carol's ascention to power was almost immediate," says Feroze Kamardeen who plays the part of John. It's probably because when someone lashes out, there's usually no prior warning. The professor keeps pushing Carol because he assumes that she won't retaliate. However, as she comes to break point, her transformation is almost instantaneous, he added.
Whether one agrees with Mamet's vision of gender relationships or sees Oleanna as a cynical exploitation of a legitimate social concern, the play does raise a host of compelling questions: What constitutes sexual harassment? Whose interpretation of a word or an action is to be privileged when interpretation itself is no longer grounded (if it ever was) in a linguistic and ethical commonality? Can – or how can – language remain a viable means of human interaction in a 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?