Past is prologue

May 17—In 1992, the #MeToo movement was 25 years from holding powerful figures accountable, and "sexual harassment" was not the household term it is today.

That year, David Mamet's play Oleanna, which focused on a college student's sexual harassment claims against her professor, appeared both off Broadway and in movie theaters. It was inspired by the 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. In real life, sexual harassment claims by his former attorney-adviser Anita Hill nearly derailed Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court.

In the play, the professor keeps his job but is denied tenure and a sizable raise.

As a result of that connection, the New Mexico Actors Lab's staging of Oleanna serves as both a rumination on a topic that's more relevant than ever and a glimpse at how such harassment was viewed in the early 1990s.

The play, directed by Suzanne Lederer, features Geoffrey Pomeroy as the professor and Emily Rankin as the student.

It's running in rotating repertory with The Niceties, written by Eleanor Burgess, which premiered in a very different time: 2018. Like Oleanna, it features two characters in conflict: a Black student meeting with her white Ivy League professor to discuss her thesis on the effects of slavery on the American Revolution. Their polite conversation devolves into a heated argument that threatens to hurt both women's careers and lives.

Actors Lab founder Robert Benedetti is directing The Niceties, which features Karen Gruber Ryan as the professor and Baby True as the student.

details

Oleanna

7:30 p.m. Friday, May 17, through Sunday, May 19, May 25-26, May 30-31, June 8-9, June 13, and June 15-16; 2 p.m. Sunday, May 19, May 26, June 9, and June 16

The Niceties

7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 23, Friday, May 24, June 1-2, June 6-7, and June 14-16; 2 p.m. June 2 and June 16

* New Mexico Actors Lab

* 1213 Parkway Drive, Suite B

* $35

* 505-395-6576; nmactorslab.com