Abstract J. T. Rogers’ Oslo has had an extraordinary run for new ‘straight’ drama: sell-out performances both in New York and London, and 7 Tony nominations. But what is it? On the face of it, Oslo is a history play – a carefully imagined reconstruction of secret talks that became the precursor to the Clinton/Arafat/Rabin Camp David meetings that resulted in the 1993 Oslo Accords. The subject and the players have been thoroughly researched by J. T. Rogers, and the play’s reception has been largely celebratory. This perhaps is the result of a play-going public’s appreciation of some intelligence in political debate and no doubt an appreciation of the play’s optimism, despite the ultimate failure of the Accords. This paper looks closely at three questions posed by Rogers’ play: 1) IS it a history play, and if so, how does it apprehend/narrate history? 2) Murray Krieger once said that history is the child of myth that never altogether escapes its parentage – is Oslo, in this sense, an unruly child of myth – not so much a history play, as it is a trans-historical political lesson? 3) If Oslo is NOT a history play, to what end does it employ its very specifically researched context?

中文翻译：

---

神话风口浪尖上的历史：JT Rogers 的奥斯陆

摘要 JT 罗杰斯的《奥斯陆》在新的“直接”戏剧方面取得了非凡的成绩：在纽约和伦敦的演出票房大卖，并获得了 7 项托尼奖提名。但它是什么？从表面上看，奥斯陆是一部历史剧——精心想象的秘密会谈的重建，成为克林顿/阿拉法特/拉宾戴维营会议的前身，最终导致 1993 年奥斯陆协议。JT Rogers 对这个主题和球员进行了彻底的研究，并且该剧的受欢迎程度在很大程度上是值得庆祝的。这可能是因为尽管协议最终失败了，但公众对政治辩论中的某些情报的欣赏以及无疑是对戏剧乐观主义的欣赏的结果。本文仔细研究了罗杰斯的戏剧提出的三个问题：1）这是一部历史剧吗，如果是，它如何理解/叙述历史？2) Murray Krieger 曾经说过，历史是神话的产物，永远不会完全脱离其出身——从这个意义上说，奥斯陆是神话的不羁之子——与其说是一部历史剧，不如说是一堂跨历史的政治课？3) 如果奥斯陆不是一部历史剧，它为了什么目的而使用其非常具体的研究背景？