ALLEN PARK, Mich.–Playwright David Mamet likes to play around with power shift that can happen among people who know each other. That is the stuff of life after all – in the workplace, in school, in marriage and relationships. Power can shift from one person to another, with painful and awkward consequences.

Chris Lutkin and Allison Megroet

In Oleanna, being produced by Outvisible Theatre in Allen Park, we are up close in the intimate space, to watch what happens between two people–a college professor (played by Chris Lutkin) and his student (played by Allison Megroet)–as the power in this relationship shifts. It is literally like watching a see-saw change its angle just once during the 80 minutes the story takes to unfold.

Lutkin plays the professor just as Mamet intended–pedantic, elitist, and the guy you absolutely do not want to be seated next to a dinner party. A guy who is clearly known for saying almost nothing as he speaks. And yet, such a person has a great deal of power, over perhaps hundreds of students a year who are working toward the highest possible grade and a toe-hold in the work-world. A lot of power to hold, that is, until he doesn’t. Lutkin plays him as a cardboard cutout of a human being who is made vulnerable by his dismissal of the danger of fire.

Through the professor, we see, too, how a misplaced word or gesture, launched from a mind grounded in ideas but not the needs and dignity of human beings, can undo a person in no time, strip them bare of the dignity they robbed from another. It’s powerful stuff packed into a short play.

Megroet manages the transformation from dewy-eyed, confused, angsty, vulnerable student to the professor’s worst nightmare extremely well. It happens in her eyes and the confidence that builds in her voice during the one-act, and the way she changes her shoulders. The taut story and dialogue by Mamet helps a lot.

Adriane Galea directs the production, and she made the first great choices in the process by casting it with such strong actors who clearly worked hard together to get the challenging Mamet dialogue right on the first night. The set–a desk and two chairs, and a bookshelf–shows perfectly the functional, drab office most professors occupy.

If you have not been to Outvisible before, be ready for a treat in how intimate the space is –seating maybe 25 people or so. At one point, I had to pull back my legs, seated in the front row, to make sure Lutkin did not trip over them. That closeness to the actors in such an intimate play is a nice bonus.

The play flies by in one act at just over an hour. Get to the theatre a few minutes early and you can hit the Dairy Queen just the other side of the parking lot.

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