Oskar Eustis

“What I see over and over is narratives that are absolutely lying to the audience about how life works out, and they are lying to the audience for the sole purpose of making the audience feel good,” he said. “That’s not what art is for.”

Mr. Eustis said that he has also recently noticed a change in his own behavior: He has found himself straightening up and organizing his office and home.

“It feels like the start of a new phase, where we’re actually thinking about the future,” he said. “Not happy. But a step. Almost two years in.”

And then, trying to sum up how he is doing, he turned, as he always does, to theater for words. He quoted “Angels in America,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic by one of his closest friends, Tony Kushner, in which Prior Walter, a character with AIDS, converses with an angel, declaring, toward the play’s end, “I want more life.”

“I didn’t mean to be quite so grandiose, but that’s actually kind of what it’s feeling like,” Mr. Eustis said. “It’s feeling like I want to be alive.”
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