OLEANNA has a simple scenario. John holds down a comfortable academic post in a higher education establishment and is engaged in what appears to be a routine tutoring session with Carol, a seemingly innocuous female student.

He acts like he’s done this a million times and is sitting pretty — a recent promotion enabling him to buy a new upmarket house, adding to life’s sweetness.

But Carol is about to upset the apple cart. While she presents initially as a naive, struggling wannabe, a certain defiance in her tone and posture suggests a different agenda. Carol’s weapon is her identity. A female, self-proclaimed socio-economic underling, a beginner in a world of experts and with an unclear sexual proclivity, her life experience is a million miles from John’s.

More importantly, her place in the world renders struggle an imperative against prevailing potentates. This is identity politics playing out the massive imbalance that can exist between one individual or power base and another.

A play that goes way beyond simple theorising, Oleanna reveals the real human conflict caused by an instinctive propensity to seek power over others and to destroy those who wield power over us.

Carol’s achievement is to topple John’s ascendancy, blow his identity and rock him to the core. This she does through an energetic assertion of herself — she eventually accuses John of sexual harassment — and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded tenure.

She’s backed by a sinister, unseen “group” that is testament to the massive influence of collective action. The result, turning John from mild nonentity to violent animal, is terrifying.

Mamet’s is not a play about taking sides. From one simple conflict in a small and insignificant room somewhere in America, he raises Oleanna to a nuanced drama of universal consequence about power.

And it’s hugely well served by Lucy Bailey’s instinctive and intelligent direction and performances by Jonathan Slinger as John and Rosie Sheehy as Carol which, immaculately controlled, are fearsomely persuasive.

Magnificent.

Runs until October 23, box office: artstheatrewestend.co.uk

MARY CONWAY