Last Chance Theater

Last Chance Theater

“Oleanna”--During the last decade or so, David Mamet’s story has intrigued audiences with its “Rashomon”-like perspective on a privileged, pedantic professor and the disgruntled female student who accuses him of sexual harassment. Is the professor an abusive sexist? Or is the student a dangerous ideologue with an ax to grind? That perceptual uncertainty was once the play’s primary thrust. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the shifting sands of Mamet’s drama fuse into harder substance. What was essentially an exercise about the uncertainty of individual perception can now be better construed as a devastating parable about intellectual relativism and moral absolutism.

F. Kathleen Foley

Victory Theatre, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank, (818) 841-4404. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Ends Saturday. $18.

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Also closing this weekend:

“Copenhagen”--Michael Frayn’s drama speculating on the real-life 1941 meeting between two physicists on opposite sides of World War II ends Sunday at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, (949) 497-2787.

“Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen”--The exhibition of trinkets, toys and artworks designed to delight and fool the eye closes Sunday at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A., (310) 440-7300.