Oleanna

photo: Craig Schwartz

Has time taken the sting out of David Mamet's two-hander between a male university professor and a female student who accuses him of sexual harassment? Not in the least. In fact I found this production, directed with psychological credibility by Doug Hughes and starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, to be more visceral and provocative than the original years ago (directed by the playwright) in which William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon seemed to be playing ideas rather than characters. Despite its advertising, the play is not really a "he said she said" Rashomon which divides the audience's sympathies between the two characters - it's too stacked against the female for that. But when you believe the characters, as you do here, it riles the audience and provokes a variety of interpretations. I haven't felt a Broadway audience as charged as this one since Albee's The Goat, which coincidentally played at the same theatre and also starred Bill Pullman.

The Royal Family

The revival of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's 1927 comedy, The Royal Family, demonstrates the many difficulties of performing a farce. Speaking quickly and throwing one's body around is not enough. Pacing is needed, as is a core of humanity and a sense of when to let the jokes breathe a bit. At the preview I saw (well over a week into previews), the pacing, humanity, and breathing space were all sorely lacking. Jan Maxwell gives her all to Julie Cavendish, the center of the madcap acting family (loosely based on the Barrymores), but she is so frenetic that her Julie never registers as a real human being. The rest of the cast is uneven, with the lovely Rosemary Harris turning in the best performance as the matriarch of the family. I imagine that, with more time, the actors will overcome their unsureness with props, and I certainly hope that someone fixes the hairdos/wigs, which seemed to distract the actors as much as they distracted the audience. (Having said all that, I suggest that this review be taken with a large grain of salt. I could not get the superb 1970s revival out of my head, and it would be hard even for an excellent production to live up to those memories.)

Oleanna

Photo: Craig Schwartz

The particulars of the Mamet's sexual harassment plot might seem a little less realistic now than they did in 1992, before public policy on such cases had matured somewhat. But in my opinion, Oleanna was never meant to be entirely time-topical, despite its then straight-from-the-headlines theme. Its stychomythic, stream-of-consciousness dialogue, which at times reduces Bill Pullman's John to chirps and groans, gives it a slightly hallucinogenic feel, and the mysterious "group" – the uncertainty about what's really going on behind Carol's (Julia Stiles) complaints – reminds me more of a Margaret Atwood dystopia than a legal drama. And that's leaving aside the deep questions raised by the play about the purpose and value of academia. The sharp performances in this production bring out the Kafkaesque universality of the story. Whether in a democracy or a dictatorship, we're often at the mercy of forces we don't understand and over which we have no control. I imagined Oleanna might seem dated in 2009. Several hundred audience members last night proved otherwise. Some of them may have been drawn by the Hollywood star power of the cast, but they left with much to think about. The show is in previews; it opens Oct. 11.

Still Life

In Alexander Dinelaris's Still Life (directed by Will Frears), brilliant photographer Carrie Ann (Sarah Paulson) hasn't taken a picture in months. Jeffrey (Frederick Weller), a trends analyst/forecaster, doesn't know how to open himself to love with a grown-up, challenging woman, but wants to. They meet, they hit it off, they get involved. Stuff happens.

There was something in Still Life, an intelligence, a desire to communicate, a thoughtfulness, that I found intriguing. However, it's hard to know how to respond to the play as a whole. The main characters are largely unlikeable. The photographer's crabbiness and nastiness are, I suspect, supposed to be sympathetic and even endearing, but they aren't. Similarly, the behavior of Terry (Mattew Rauch), Jeffrey's boss and the play's id, is supposed to be amusing and thought-provoking, but it is actually ugly and nonsensical.

From Dinelaris's playwright's note in the program, and from many of the characters' speeches, it is clear that Still Life is a play of ideas as well as a play of relationships. Many of the ideas are interesting, but their presentation as conversation doesn't work. It doesn't help that the cast has been directed to use a slightly heightened way of speaking that is terribly distancing. Only the always classy Adriane Lenox manages to come across as a sympathetic, flesh-and-blood, interesting person.

I concede that it is completely possible that I just didn't get this play. I saw a preview, and I assume that Still Life was still a work in progress. Perhaps the relationships and ideas will have been clarified by the time this review is posted. It's also possible that the play was already in its final shape but just not my cup of tea.

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