Reviewer Clearly Missed the Point of ‘Oleanna’

While it’s very tempting, I’m trying not to write an “I-just-didn’t-like-your-review” response to Don Shirley’s dismissive review of David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” which premiered at the Tiffany Theater on Feb. 4 (“Casting’s Just One Bug in ‘Oleanna,’ ” Calendar, Feb. 7). Shirley has two issues with the Los Angeles production: First, the dubbed-by-him “controversial casting” of Lionel Smith, an African American, as the professor, and second, he doesn’t like the play itself.

On the first point, there is nothing “controversial” about a major playwright maintaining cast approval. The controversy reported by Shirley in previous articles and now so extensively in this review is that Lionel Smith is black.

Whether or not “Oleanna’s” move from the Mark Taper was racially motivated really has nothing to do with the production he reviewed at the Tiffany. But instead of writing an in-depth review of the work itself (and the performances in particular), Shirley can’t seem to see past the issue of Smith’s race--devoting a considerable portion of his review to this so-called “controversial casting.”

*

Shockingly, the only description the reader is given of Kyra Sedgwick’s superb performance, which carries half the play, is that she is “white,” and that she “mastered most--although, not quite all--of Mamet’s rapid-fire dialogue.” Oh yes, and that she is too glamorous.

So much for critique and discussion of this production. As for the play itself, clearly Shirley doesn’t like the play, and judging from his comments, doesn’t get the play. “Oleanna” is a work that invites controversy and rebuttal, and judging from audiences and other reviews, it is an enraging, provocative, incensing, irritating and fascinating piece of theater. It is not necessarily loved by all who see it, but as Time magazine states, “reason enough to cheer for the future of the theater” (Nov. 2, 1992).

“Oleanna” is currently in production not only all over the country but all over the world--with productions sold out in Germany, in Israel, in Switzerland and in London under Harold Pinter’s direction. It has just closed in New York after a nearly two-year run. It is a wonderment that a whole body of critics and patrons takes Mamet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, seriously, while Shirley seems so comfortable dismissing him. And it is this dismissive tone in Los Angeles’ major metropolitan newspaper that I am addressing.

I am indeed not writing an “I-just-didn’t-like-your-review” kind of letter. I am making a huge plea for responsible and intelligent criticism as opposed to the tabloid and flippant reporting that does nothing to enhance the status of the theater in Los Angeles.