Oslo

Oslo is playing at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre located at 150 West 65th Street. It runs three hours with two intermissions. The play closes on August 28, 2016.

Bartlett Sher is the director. He won a Tony Award for South Pacific (2008). Bartlett has been nominated for five Tony Awards for The King and I (2015), Golden Boy (2012), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2009), Clifford Odets Awake & Sing (2006) and Light in the Piazza (2005). He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2016 for the revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

Catherine Zuber is the costume designer. She has been nominated 11 times for a Tony Award, and has won six times. She won for The King and I (2015), The Royal Family (2010), South Pacific (2008), Awake and Sing (2006) and The Light in the Piazza (2005). Catherine was nominated for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2011), Born Yesterday (2011), Edward Albee’s Seascape (2006), Dinner at Eight (2003) and Twelfth Night (1999).

Jennifer Ehle won two Tony Awards for The Coast of Utopia (2007) and The Real Thing (2000). She is the daughter of English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle.

Daniel Jenkins was nominated for a Tony Award for Big River (1985).

Jefferson Mays won a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for I Am My Own Wife (2004) and was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (2014).

Oslo takes place in Norway and other locations around the world from April 1992 to September 1993.

Johan Jorgen Holst (T. Rydner Smith) (the foreign minister) and his wife Marianne Heiberg (Henny Russell) (executive with Fafo Institute)are entertaining, Terje Rod-Larson (Jefferson Mays) (director of Fafo Institute) and his wife Mona Jual (an official in the foreign ministry). They tell Jan of their secret involvement in the high level meetings between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He throws a fit, using the F word several times.

The story the goes back from the being to the current time.

Both the Palestine’s and the Israel’s are doing the meetings in secret without the top leaders of their countries knowing. The Palestine’s involved are Ahmed Quire (Anthony Azizi), finance minister and Hassan Asfour (Dariush Kashani), official PLO liaison with the Palestine delegation. The Israel’s involved are Shimon Peres (Daniel Oreskes), foreign minister, Yossi Belin (Adam Dannheisser), deputy foreign minister and Uri Savir (Michael Aronov), director-general of the foreign ministry.

As the talks go on, other people get involved.

This is an interesting show. It makes you want to find out more as to what happened.

The acting is excellent. Jefferson Mays, Jennifer Ehle, Anthony Azizi and Dasiash Kashani all do an astounding performance. There are 21 actors in the show.

The set is minimal and the cast helps move the furniture around.

The only thing is I wished it was not as long as it was; some scenes could have been left out.

Still it is a show worth seeing and it is a story that should be told again and again.

Review by Rozanna Radakovich.

Photos by Annazor.

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