Anti-realism, Language, and the Dominant in Oleanna

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of Cinema and Theater, Department of Theater, the University of Arts, Tehran

Abstract

David Mamet’s Oleanna (1992) is the most controversial play among his plays, including Sexual
Perversity in Chicago (1971) and American Buffalo (1975), which both came as something like a
shock. With Oleanna, the shock was completed; the play provoked many debates on political correctness
and the sexual harassment. Many feminist critics attacked it for the seemingly misogynic
theme supported by the play. After this first wave deflated, critics focused on other themes: power,
language, and gender; now the play was interpreted as a clash between two sexes over power. One of
the most Influential approaches has been McLeod’s suggestion that the narrow critical preoccupation
with sexual harassment, political correctness and beleaguered masculinity in Oleanna had obscured
what was in fact a far wider and more challenging dramatic engagement with issues of power, hierarchy
and the control of language. This essay sees Oleanna from this viewpoint and tries to focus on
the dramatic structure of the play itself, which is unique among the contemporary American plays.
Structure of Oleanna, while seemingly related to American realism, reveals anti-realistic dimensions
which is similar to Pinter’s work and the European dramatists. Mamet’s linguistic model in Oleanna
through pauses, repetitions, and cuts is the instrument of retardation. In Oleanna, structure is in one
sense Aristotelian, but Mamet through this language obscure Aristotelian model. Form and content,
are inseparable: language is the subject of play; its uses and misuses. But language means dominance
too. Also, gender becomes important during the play: Carol uses sexual politics to change her position
in the hierarchy of power. Also I suggest that Oleanna, as Mamet said, is a tragedy on power. John
and Carol’s battle is over more power; both of them are blind, and their recognition is when both fall;
John beats his student and Carol ruins John’s wishes

Keywords