Oleanna 2019: Inside Gus Powers’ final show, Tasmanian Theatre Company

Tasmanian Theatre Company director Adam “Gus” Powers’ staging of David Mamet’s classic play Oleanna, which opens at Coogan’s pop-up theatre in Hobart tonight, is a fitting end to his career with the company.

Artistic director of the Tasmanian Theatre Company Adam “Gus” Powers is staging David Mamet’s classic play, Oleanna. Picture: Zak Simmonds

DAVID Mamet’s controversial play Oleanna is a fitting bookend to the Tasmanian Theatre Company’s 2019 season — and to Adam “Gus” Powers’ tenure as artistic director of the company.

Powers first presented and performed in the two-person play 12 years ago as part of his Masters of Theatre degree in Melbourne, and its troubling themes have stuck with him since.

Oleanna is the story of an ambiguous and ultimately explosive exchange between a male professor and a female student who accuses him of sexual exploitation.

“It haunted me in a way,” says Powers, who is leaving the TTC after two years for personal reasons, just as he secured State Government funding for another season of programming.

“I felt unresolved about what the play was about. As beautiful as the writing is, it doesn’t really answer all the questions Mamet poses in the text, so it’s stayed with me for a long time.”

The play opens tonight in Hobart, starring acclaimed Tasmanian actor Guy Hooper as the professor, John, and Tasmanian Karen Ireson (now based in Melbourne) as the student, Carol.

It is being presented as an immersive theatre experience in a pop-up theatre at Coogan’s Theatre on Collins Street in Hobart.

Powers says it is as timely now as it was when it made its stage debut in Massachusetts in the US in 1992, amid fierce debate over sexual harassment and political correctness. It also shone a spotlight on hierarchies and teaching styles within the tertiary education sector.

“With the #MeToo and #LetHerSpeak [movements] and Eurydice Dixon’s murder, the play had been playing on my mind a lot,” Powers says.

“A friend of mine had spoken about how they felt tired about calling men out for their behaviour, and I guess I thought, ‘What can I do to help?’ It immediately sprung to mind that Oleanna dealt with those topics. It just felt right [to stage it], even though it was written 27 years ago.

“One of the problems with this play is it’s incredibly famous for the very final [violent] moment of the show. Even when I re-read it, I was shocked again at that final moment.”

Despite the play’s provocations, Powers says Oleanna is underpinned by a powerful premise.

“What it highlights now is how far we’ve come in being able to discuss these things and to be able to discuss abuse,” he says.

“There are now policies and procedures in place in workplaces and universities around the world so that if an allegation was made by a student towards a professor, that would be investigated and they would not be allowed to communicate without mediation.”

Powers says while he feels this production doesn’t answer all the questions posed by Mamet, he is more resolved about “the characters’ humanity”.

“Neither of them are perfect individuals, but they are coming from life in very different places, and essentially it boils down to their miscommunication. The use of language in this play is very important,” he says.

Oleanna opens tonight at pop-up theatre No.12, Coogan’s Theatre, 79 Collins St, Hobart. It runs until November 16. Tickets at tastheatre.com/tickets/