The very presence of Mr. Pence — whose views on immigration, like those of Mr. Trump, are anything but celebratory — at this particular show (one previously embraced by the Obamas and Clintons) would seem to signal that an unspoken debate was going on that night. In that case, wasn’t Mr. Dixon belaboring the obvious in delivering the statement prepared by him and his associates (including Mr. Miranda)? Was what he said a condescending equivalent of supertitles for the inferentially challenged?

Any inclinations I might have had to think that way evaporated in the face of the succeeding barrage of Mr. Trump’s tweets (which were still continuing on Sunday morning). They underscored for me just how much we are living in a world that demands overstatement, in which italicized capital letters are required to highlight sentiments that might otherwise go ignored.

Woe unto those who believe that the meanings between the lines will be widely read. Much of the success of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign had to do with his awareness of that reality of contemporary communication.

In delivering his plea to Mr. Pence, Mr. Dixon wasn’t just emphasizing that a play is more than a self-contained work of art, that it’s a cry of thought and feeling pitched to an audience, a city, a nation, a world. He was also addressing Mr. Trump (through Mr. Pence) on his own blunt terms, albeit in a more eloquent (and, yes, polite) style. He was meeting directness with directness, carefully spelling out what his show had to say.

If the recent past is anything to go by, it is fair to assume that Mr. Trump will encounter more direct salvos from theater artists once he assumes the presidency. Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush (Remember Will Ferrell in “You’re Welcome America”?) and Barack Obama have all been the subjects of theater satires while in office. Those portraying Johnson and Nixon — created in a time when the nation was as contentiously divided as it is now, the 1960s and early ’70s — were especially savage in their attacks.

So will the political theater of the future prove a match for all the president’s thumbs? In any case, disagreement and dissent should energize art, not paralyze it, and provoke responses to match. I look forward (though perhaps with a wince) to whatever Mr. Trump has to say about whatever is said about him on this country’s stages. The main thing is that the conversation — all sides of it — be allowed to continue.