Oleanna

Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles
Tuesday, June 10, 2009

This is apparently an older play by David Mamet. It starred Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman. She had been performing the role in London with a different actor and they brought the production here.
Mamet has a distinct voice in his plays. The characters hem and haw a lot and when they finally complete a sentence it's this big revelation of information. It does build suspense, but after a while it does become a bit tiring.
There are actually three characters in the this play. The playbill only lists two, but the director (or whomever came up with the idea) decided that the window blinds going up and down were a good way to pass the time while the actors go off stage and change their clothes. There is a loud buzzing while the blinds move and during the second scene one of them stayed up while the rest lowered. Is that supposed to happen? Is something wrong with the blinds? It wouldn't surprise me a bit to find that the blinds raising and lowering were all in the script and orchestrated by Mamet himself.

The actors did an amazing job. The play takes us through this transformation in these characters lives. Julia really takes her character through this journey in, not just a physical way with her body movements, but with her thought process and perspective. You see her desperation and emotion in the first act. Then how she's empowered and transformed throughout the rest of the

story. Bill's character takes the opposite journey and begins with confidence and presence and by the end of the play is just defeated. This picture is of Julia Stiles and Aaron Eckhart who played the Bill Pullman role in London.

I would recommend this production. The acting is top notch and the story is compelling.