The Official I-Have-to-Admit-I-Didn't-Enjoy-Oleanna-Very-Much Thread!

April Saul, I am right there with you. I was so excited for this production and could not be more let down after seeing it. It might be the one play (other than Next Fall, which I have already seen) I was the most excited for. After the positive reviews on here I really expected something special. Alas, I did not get what I wanted.

I thought that the weakest part of the play was the text itself. It felt so unnatural. Mamet's experimental writing was taken to a whole new level, but I think it went too far. Doug Hughes' direction did nothing to cover this up at all. Everything felt very stilted. I will disagree on one point, and that is Pullman's performance. I thought he was awful. I found him stiff, misguided, and not believable. On the other hand, I found Julia to be magnificent. She definitely made the most of the terrible text. I wish I could see her sink her teeth into something that is better to begin with. Oh well, another X on this season's list of plays.

We didn't stay for the talk back either. The other thing that I forgot to mention in my previous post was my disdain for the lighting shifts at random times throughout the scenes. One in particular stands out. All of a sudden, the background light being cast on the window shades changed from white light to blue light. It wasn't a dramatic moment in the text, and it wasn't a fade in. There was a random bump to the next cue right in the middle of one of Julia's lines. I liked the set design for the most part, but the lighting had me twitching. I was shocked. Donald Holder's lighting of South Pacific is gorgeous, and his lighting for both Les Liaisons at Roundabout and Cyrano two seasons ago was stunning. Hopefully he can redeem himself from this hot mess with Ragtime and Spider-Man.

I'm with musicalman2. I found it powerful and moving.

Is this the kind of play you "enjoy"? I'm not sure that's the word I would use...

April, I think there will be more than a few who don't like it. I also think some of it may come from the fact that it is hard to watch a train wreck in the making. These two seemed destined to clash from the get go. I think one of the things I liked though is that it just keeps moving forward and little steps and finally siezes you. Personally, I was riveted by watching the train wreck evolve. Such very nice performances as well.