There’s a frisson of recognition that occurs when great art reflects important truths, but fantasy offers its own superficial pleasures. In between is a space where many of today’s playwrights operate: they have a lot of social commentary to offer about a world of their imagining. In other words, they cheat. Just as conspiracy theorists tend to band together, critics tend to champion work that reinforces their own self-deluding worldview. The ordinary citizen equipped with basic facts scratches his head and wonders why only he sees the obvious.

A case in point is M. Butterfly (at the Cort Theatre), the play by David Henry Hwang that created a sensation upon its Broadway debut in 1988 and went on to capture the Tony award for Best Play. In a revival directed by Julie Taymor, Clive Owen plays Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat based on a real person who, as the play opens, is bemoaning his fate in a tiny prison cell in 1986. The play derives much of its dramatic force from the interspersed reminders that something like this bizarre story made headlines in the 1980s: if someone told you the whole thing was made up, it would have to be played for laughs, à la Some Like It Hot. Yet the playgoer who looks up the facts will realize he’s been had. Hwang’s brazen assumption is that few will do that, few critics even.

Critics tend to champion work that reinforces their own self-deluding worldview.