SOURCE: “Now Playing the Strip,” in New York, March 29, 1999, pp. 73-4.

In the following review, Simon offers a salutary estimate of Via Dolorosa.

Does a playwright’s holding forth in person for 90 minutes about journeying to Israel and the Gaza Strip sound like good theater? No? Guess again; you’ll be riveted by Via Dolorosa. David Hare can observe, write, think (already rare enough in a dramatist), and also act. Not in the sense of political action—what can an English playwright do to compel Jews and Palestinians to live in peace?—but of being a charming actor. He can also bear witness.

Hare, who has a Jewish wife, conceived his trips to a war that calls itself peace negotiations out of both intellectual and professional curiosity. The tone is set right off: “The girl at Gatwick asks me where I am going. ‘Tel Aviv,’ I say, and...