Oleanna and the Modern Academy

There was a time when I wanted very badly to produce David Mammet's Play "Glen Gary, Glen Ross." It expressed, I thought, a lot of the things I'd been thinking about men in business and how they behave.

Mammet's plays are ferocious in the lines actors are made to learn and deliver. He's also very particular about not wanting anybody to adlib or cheat on his lines. Convinced I couldn't cast it, Brent Lefavor started talking to me about Mammet's 1992 shorter play, "Oleanna."

On its surface, "Oleanna" is about sexual harassment in the wake of the Anita Hill accusations. Like "Glen Gary, Glen Ross" was about much more than real estate or salesmanship, "Oleanna" is about much more than the headlines with Clarance Thomas or any of the gender politics of the day.

We started talking about Larry Wells as John. John has a lot of lines, more than you can imagine, and they're really very difficult lines. I considered asking Larry about the part a moral question since it would be so much work.

Having worked with him on five or six plays at that point, I knew he could handle the role if he would. My first exposure to him was playing Iago in "Othello." He's such a sweet guy, but he almost always plays a heavy character.

Ultimately, we talked about how Larry was carnivorous as an actor, and John is a really good role, so I asked, and he accepted. His acting partner turned out to be far less dedicated and far less capable, but fortunately, she had a lot less to do.

John is a university professor. It's not spelled out in the play, but he's written a book about education, so I assume he's an education teacher. Carol is a frustrated young student who begins to reflect her frustrations back on the institution and back on John.

The play is written so that it's hard to tell whether or not John actually creates a harsh environment for Carol because of her gender. After discussing it with Larry, we decided that maybe John was just dehumanizing about all his students. He and I both had professors like that.

In my experience as a student, the teacher who was hardest on female students was also a woman. She openly said that she was harder on promising women as students than men because the business world would be harder on them. I've never been able to formulate a successful argument against her perspective. Having tracked several of her students through their careers, I have to say she may have been right.

John begins to question the academy itself and the value of its product. That's what made me think of it after twenty years. A lot of politicians are discussing the value of a university degree versus a trade school. John, the character, and David Mammet, the writer, would join that discussion.

In the play, John says :

“Somebody told you, and you hold it as an article of faith, that higher education is an unassailable good. This notion is so dear to you that when I question it you become angry. Good. Good, I say. Are not those the very things which we should question? I say college education, since the war, has become so a matter of course, and such a fashionable necessity, for those either of or aspiring to to the new vast middle class, that we espouse it, as a matter of right, and have ceased to ask, “What is it good for?”

Considering how much the Academy now costs, both the student and society, questions about the “vast middle class” and especially “what is it good for” are things anyone involved in education at any level has to ask.

I love the liberal arts and the academy more than I love some of you. Not really, but it’s close. I was worried about this in 1998 when we produced “Oleanna,” and I’m still worried about it now.

The GI Bill made college education possible for millions of Americans. In the process, it made a college education a necessity for participation in the American Middle Class that dominated the economic largess that came after World War II, largely due to the fact that so much of the rest of the world, and their factories, had been destroyed and had to be rebuilt, while America had been untouched.

I don’t have the answers John and Carol were seeking as characters. I do have the same questions David Mammet was asking, which ironically are the same questions Shad White is asking. Although I’m not convinced White understands them, he’s just heard smarter conservatives talk about them. That’s mean. I apologize. I bet I’m right, though.

I love stories that aren’t about what they seem to be about. “Oleanna wasn’t about sexual harassment or even gender politics; it was about the inherent value of the academy. The last play we did with Larry was “Eurydice” by Sarah Ruhl. St. Andrews is doing it next in their beautiful new theater.

“Eurydice” isn’t about the character of Eurydice or even about Orpheus or Hades; it’s about Eurydice’s father. Eurydice is generally conceived as a nymph, sometimes the daughter of Apollo, but in the play, she is human and has a human father, and the play becomes about how the father releases his love for his child after he dies.

It’s a hugely metaphysical question. What becomes of love, even a father’s love, after you die? Larry handled the part deftly and beautifully. As powerful as it is when Larry cuts loose with actorly rage and fury, it is even more powerful when he restrains it.

All art, even macrame, is about dealing with cultural questions. Sometimes, simply discussing these things isn’t enough. Art, particularly theater, began as a religious expression, and religion is one of the primary vehicles we use to bind people to their culture. Every Sunday, you take on the role of an actor as you repeat the prayers the prophets gave us, or if you’re a Christian, you roleplay the crucifixion itself by eating at the Lord’s Table with your family and friends.

I don’t have the answers you seek when it comes to education, the academy, Shad White, or Eurydice’s father, but I have the same questions. I think we’re in danger when we cease to ask, “What is it good for?”