West End Oslo Star Philip Arditti on Stepping Into a Tony-Winning Role & Trying to Dislike His Co-Stars

J.T. Rogers’ provocative and poignant Oslo has arrived in London not long after winning the 2017 Tony for Best Play and a further Tony for featured actor Michael Aronov playing the Israeli negotiator Uri Savir who was among the key players at the Oslo Peace Accords in Norway in 1993. Recast for its National Theatre premiere in September, Bartlett Sher’s production has since transferred for an acclaimed run to the Harold Pinter Theatre and allowed the London-based Philip Arditti, as Uri, to garner some of his best reviews to date. Broadway.com spoke to the warm and lively Arditti about the power of this play and his delight at being in a hit.

How did you come to this play originally?
When I first read [Oslo], it hadn’t yet won the Tony so it came without that baggage. I’d done J.T. Rogers’s earlier play Blood and Gifts at the National [in 2010], and I definitely felt an unconscious connection between the character I played there—the young Afghan, Saeed, who listens to Tina Turner and who is quite hotheaded and could also turn on a dime—and Uri in this. All that fed into my original reading of Oslo: my reaction was influenced by that previous experience.

Did you respond almost instinctually to Uri on the page?
The moment I read the play, I thought, “J.T. must surely have written this part for me.” [Laughs.] There’s no other way of saying it: I really felt as if, "That’s me,” though of course it isn’t me in real life. But I am Turkish-Jewish and grew up in the Jewish community of Istanbul, and I do know Israel pretty well. I had an aunt and other family members who had done Aliyah to Israel so there was that connection as well.

How does this play compare in the performing of it to Blood and Gifts?
That was a meaty, chunky, long play with a lot of men talking politics and that was very entertaining much like this, and I think this is actually even more entertaining. J.T. seems to go right to the soft spot for what we as outsiders to events don’t know about what is happening behind the scenes and who holds the power and how that power can shift. It seems as if the play taps into the feeling abroad right now in the world as to what’s secret and what’s not and who makes what kind of decisions.

Did you know a lot about Uri beforehand?
I didn’t, to be honest: I’m sort of interested in Israeli politics but not to that extent. But what I quickly discovered is his status as a diplomat and politician who was part of Shimon Peres’ closed circle of aides who were kind of the bright young stars. As young minds, they helped shape this incredible piece of history that we’re telling and they had this remarkable ideal of wanting to talk to the PLO—as is shown in the play.

What is it like not appearing onstage until the second act?
I still have to get to the theater with everyone else but what often happens is that I watch the first half, or at least three-quarters of the first half, since I can’t watch it all. What I notice every night is that Bart [Sher, the director] is a real master at anything to do with directing and especially to do with spatial awareness and the connection between language and space. This show is great to be in, but it’s also great to watch.

Is your entrance fun?
You mean with my sunglasses and all? It’s amazing. The thing about Uri is that he comes in and he has to dominate. This is a fairly shouty play and the stakes are f**king high: these people are in it for their lives. Of course, you don’t want to annoy people, but what’s driving me in performance is that need to dominate. I suspect they have to take my mic down quite a bit.

Have you been in touch with the real-life Uri, who is in his 60s and still living in Israel?
You know, Michael [Aronov] was very much in touch with him, but I haven’t been at all. I quickly became aware that the character in the play wasn’t the real man and that he has a certain theatricality in our telling of the story that serves something in relationship to the play, so I didn’t want to meet the actual person and get influenced by things that can spin out of control.

How do you handle the double-act presented in the play between Uri and his opposite number from the PLO, Ahmed Qurei, played by Peter Polycarpou?
What’s great is that Peter played my dad in my very first ever professional job in [U.K. series] Casualty and since then we’ve worked together many, many times. Bart had to remind us not to like each other—that was the main note we got from him—which took some work. Peter was wonderful when I was just starting out and he’s as wonderful now.

Are you surprised by the amount of humor in the play, alongside the passion and the politics?
But that’s just J.T., isn’t it? I mean, that’s who he is: a man with a beautiful sense of humor as is Bart, too. And that’s what [Oslo] has got to be if you’re going to put this story onstage. Anything else would just be impossible as far as keeping the audience’s attention. J.T. writes characters who are intellectually sharp and agile and witty but who also snap at unexpected moments. It’s nothing but thrilling.

What does this play represent for you in the context of your career so far?
You know, I left drama school in 2004 and until now I have never worked in the West End and I’ve never been in a hit. I’ve done five or six shows at the National and played some of our big houses, but for my entrance in those sunglasses to also be my entrance into the West End is a great feeling. I couldn’t ask for more.