It was not a conscious decision to avoid seeing Oslo when it first arrived at National Theatre, it just failed to get any traction with me at the time. Then the reviews arrived and the decision was taken away from me. I think twice about going above £30 for a theatre tickets (I go c150 times a year, you do the sums) but I was happy to push the boat out spend £46 for Royal Circle Row A Seat 9. A great seat for a fair price.
I had been put off Oslo by its dry subject mater, a behind the scenes look at the Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation signed in 1993. This was a bit unfair as I had seen the similarly themed A Walk in the Woods twice, most recently at the Tricycle Theatre in 2011.
The basic idea, devised by a Norwegian academic, played by Toby Stephens, was to have semi-formal talks by fringe players that well out of the public eye and that both sides could plausibly deny were happening. Only when a deal was close would the leaders of both sides become involved and only once a deal was reached would the negotiations become public.
The story revolved around the negotiators, who had a natural distrust for each other, and the facilitators who were concerned about running the talks behind the USA's back. There would be political and personal consequences for everybody if things went wrong. The negotiations were held behind closed doors and nobody, not even us, was allowed to see what was going on. Most of the action, if action is the right word, took place in an ante-room where they retired for breaks or stormed into when negotiations got difficult.
A potentially dry story was given bundles of life by the characters in it. They were all serious in intent but, being people, they all did human things like make silly jokes and comment on the foreign food. The diversity and humanity of the many characters was one of the play's strengths.
Somehow a story that we already knew the ending to effortlessly filled three hours with griping drama. That effortlessness was created by superb theatre craft where all the tricks of the trade were skilfully deployed. It was professionally expert theatre that used that expertise to make an easily approachable drama. It was easy to see why it was a success.
Oslo is every bit as brilliant as the people who say it is brilliant say it is.
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