Leaving Lincoln Center on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon after a performance of “Oslo,” I was surprisingly engulfed by an uneasy disquiet. My reaction, I should hasten to make clear, is not one that will likely be shared by many who go to see Bartlett Sher’s crystalline production of a fine new American play by J.T. Rogers — though I expect other minds will be similarly concentrated by the issues the play raises. Is the fault in myself, I mused, or in the stars? (Here I decidedly am not referring to the ones on the stage but rather those through which fifty-nine U.S. missiles cruised toward a single target in Syria last week.)
First, though, to the many aspects of the production that require commendation — the probing of history, dense ideas, elevated discourse, crackerjack ensemble acting, staging acutely devised to amplify content and exemplary, even revelatory, design.
