Vinay Varma dazzled in this adaptation of David Mamet’s Oleanna

Plot: An adaptation of Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet’s Oleanna, this play tells the tale of a power struggle between a professor and his female student, Vidya. The two-character drama begins with Vidya sitting in the professor’s office and trying to explain that she finds it very difficult to understand his concepts. The professor, a man with an inflated ego, initially refuses to help but slowly gives in to her repeated requests. He is, however, constantly interrupted by his wife’s phone calls. During the conversation, he tells Vidya that he ‘likes her’ and offers to give her an ‘A’ in her final paper if she agrees to visit him often. In the course of their discussion, Vidya gets upset about not being able to understand the professor’s verbose sentences, he puts his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. A few days later, the professor learns that Vidya has filed a formal complaint against him with the college committee accusing him of sexual harassment. Will the professor be able to free himself of the charge?

Review: As all the three acts of Oleanna play out in the professor’s office, director Bhasker Shewalkar employed a minimal set design and properties to draw the audience’s focus solely on the two characters played by Vinay Varma (professor) and Supriya Aysola (Vidya). And it worked. David’s dialogues, particularly in the first act, popularly known as ‘Mametspeak’ — a rhythmic and dramatic style of dialogue writing replete with small, broken sentences, interruptions and pauses — is challenging for any actor and Vinay took that challenge head on. His stage antics and demeanour were spot on and successfully established the professor as a sophisticated man with an inflated ego. Supriya however, struggled to bring out the anxiety, confusion and insecurities her character goes through. Though she tried to incorporate several mannerisms of a person suffering from anxiety such as shaky hands, restlessness,

irritability

and so on, Supriya couldn’t carry off Vidya’s transition from a demure student to an agitated girl convincingly. Her dialogues, particularly the spiteful ones, were voiced with repeated expressions and the fact that she chose to present her side profile to the audience most times deprived the act of the necessary gravitas. In contrast, Vinay’s portrayal of how the professor transitions from an authoritative figure to a weak person after being accused of sexual harassment and how he subsequently goes on to manhandle a woman, looked effortless. There is nothing much to talk about sound and light except the timely phone

rings

and use of colour spots that added gravitas to the climax.

Verdict: The hero of the play is the layered script that seeks to give the audience a realistic picture of today’s education system. It is the fourth staging of the play but the chemistry between the lead characters seemed a little off, especially in the initial stages. If Supriya could work on her expressions and compliment Vinay’s performance, things would been much better for the play. In this regard, director Bhasker could have employed the ‘Cheat Out’ technique to help Supriya position herself better on stage, but it wasn’t to be.

No doubt

, Oleanna is a challenging play and if Sutradhar can fix these holes, it would be a gem in the theatre group’s repertoire.