2017 tony-winning play Oslo takes the ACT stage this Fall. This play tells of the events that lead to the 1993 Oslo Accords peace treaty between the Israelis and Palestinians. The dramatic events in this play are acted by a brilliant acting ensemble across a politically-complex landscape.
The play mostly centers around the peace-treaty coordination efforts of Norwegian diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rod-Larsen. The combined perspectives of both these diplomats is the lense that the historic events of this play are presented to the audience. This play is dramatic, takes place on a politically complex landscape, and brings to light the humanity of events that lead to the ill-fated Rose Garden lawn 1993 handshake.
Before getting into the nitty-gritty of this review, I must say, that being that there has been so much more that has happened within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1993 the timing of this play puzzles me. As someone politically passionate about the Israeli-Palestine conflict and whose loved ones have been personally affected by this conflict, the production of the analysis of the 1993 Oslo peace treaty feels dusty. Though the events within this play are of course still politically relevant today, I believe ACT could have stepped up their act by producing a more contemporary play addressing more recent events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This aside, this play is all you would want to see from a play: highly-interesting and full of drama. This play was entertaining to see acted by an amazing acting ensemble. Magnificent acting was seen from all the actors in the cast. In particular, Avery Clark’s acting of Terje Rod-Larsen was supreme. Clark’s mannerisms during the performance related to trying to control the Oslo meeting were conveyed very well.
While this play was quite entertaining, the ending unfortunately fell-flat. The resolution of this play fell-flat as the directing choice was quite stale and did not mesh that well with the rest of the play’s high energy. The ending of this play also unfortunately came across as being overly heroic and trite. I think that this play would have ended much stunningly if the director had taken a more creative approach to the text at the ending of the play. Also interweaving more recent events of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would have also made the ending of the play phenomenal.
Oslo will be running through November 11th. You can buy tickets by going to ACT theater’s website: https://order.acttheatre.org/events/oslo?psn=10101. Make sure to see this play before it closes!