Israel calling—as well as the P.L.O. A phone call, in fact, launches Oslo, J. T. Rogers’s electrifying three-hour drama, opening in April at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont after a critically acclaimed Off Broadway run last year. The setup is irresistible: the fraught behind-the-headlines negotiations 25 years ago when representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel secretly met in Norway and battled their way to the 1993 Oslo peace accords. How did this byzantine insider’s story come to the stage? A chance meeting on the playground of their daughters’ school started the friendship between director Bartlett Sher and Norway’s U.N. ambassador, Mona Juul, and her husband, the sociologist Terje Rød-Larsen. In time, the largely unknown history of Juul’s and Larsen’s roles as clandestine go-betweens came to light. Sher asked Larsen to meet Rogers, and the playwright was immediately captivated by Larsen’s tales—and by the fussy elegance of his custom-made brogues. Rogers knew he had his new play, he says, “when I learned that the Israelis and the Palestinians liked to do impersonations and tell jokes.” The result: Oslo—with standouts Jennifer Ehle, Jefferson Mays, Anthony Azizi, and Daniel Oreskes—is a multifaceted gem, its two dozen characters displaying all their flaws and humanity. The world now knows that this high-wire diplomacy led to the fragile, historic handshake on the White House lawn between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and P.L.O. chief Yasser Arafat. And however fleeting the peace, the moment, for Larsen, proved that even among intractable foes “soft music and a dance floor” sometimes permit reason to prevail.

Daniel Craig and David Oyelowo Rehearse Othello



1 / 8 Chevron Chevron Photograph by Charlie Gray. David Oyelowo as Othello and Daniel Craig as Iago.