Battle of the Sexes Rages On In Mamet’s Classic
BY KARI WETHINGTON

It’s said that if you know anything at all about American theater you know all about David Mamet. Senior JD Sifford-Angotti’s production of Mamet’s classic American drama, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, packed Little Theater with an eager closing-night crowd last Friday. Originally debuting in 1974, the play confronted and satirized the sometimes bleak relations between men and women, with sex, of course, as the main battleground. 
What makes the play an intriguing choice for a cast and audience of 2001 is the ability to question whether things have changed over the 27 years since Mamet penned the play. The challenge is in presenting the play’s humor and satire, enveloped in rapid, heated dialogue, in a manner that tests the boundaries of sexual stereotypes and effectively speaks of the pathos of urban life. Director Sifford-Angotti handled the task successfully. The episodic story, divided into many abrupt narratives, managed to be cohesive and comedically satisfying, while retaining its sharp edge of cynicism.
Sexual Perversity in Chicago, adapted and made into a film called About Last Night with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore in 1986, seems so modern in part due to its resemblance to recent popular movies. One of the play’s most charismatic (though creepy) characters is Bernie, played by senior Roger Barker, who happens to share many dreadful traits with Tom Cruise’s macho Frank Mackey in Magnolia or Christian Bale’s twisted Patrick Bale in American Psycho. With his dramatic Chicago accent and large ego, Bernie is a single woman’s worst nightmare, as evidenced by his run-in with Joan, the cynical grade-school teacher, played by sophomore Arielle Halpern. Bernie hits on Joan, but much to his dismay, he is coolly rejected.
The first scenes introduce us to the superficial adventures of Bernie and his co-worker Dan, played by senior Aaron Bonner-Jackson. Bernie forms the nucleus of the relationship, incessantly offering unsolicited advice regarding women and sex, while Dan, who seems shy and reserved in comparison, absorbs it all without refute. The exchanges between Bonner-Jackson and Barker comprise most of the play’s satirical moments, and the two actors fill their roles splendidly by keeping the atmosphere loaded and the audience hooked in the otherwise repetitive, preposterous dialogue.
Joan is the most insightful character, saying things like “Men — they’re all after one thing, but it’s not the same thing.” Though Halpern succeeds in bringing across Joan’s cynical view of love with commanding monologues, there seems to be a lack in the highs and lows in Joan’s emotions, and instead Halpern seems to retain a constant level of earnest bitterness, even when addressing the children in her classroom. 

Deborah, played by junior Emma Cott, is Dan’s love interest and is exceedingly more interested in the idea of love than her roommate, Joan. Deborah’s romanticism is mastered by Cott, who manages, despite the difficult, vigorous dialogue, to keep her interactions believable as well as expressive. As a romance sparks between Deborah and Dan, their relationship proves that even the less stereotypical of the characters (in comparison to cynical Joan and ego-maniacal Bernie) are affected by cultural specifications of how relationships work.
The four cast members of Oberlin’s production of Sexual Perversity in Chicago succeeded in presenting Mamet’s classic: the social critique was clear and effective and the artistic deliverance of the story was exceptional. The ironic factor inherent in the play was well portrayed by the actors, even if it was a bit overdone at times.