Twenty years before Kellyanne Conway seized the news cycle with “alternative facts” about President Trump’s inaugural crowd size, Al Franken (now, Senator Al Franken) began a satirical cottage industry to expose the seemingly loose grasp on truth of various right-wing pundits in such books as “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” Nearly 50 years before that, George Orwell published his dystopian classic, “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” with its “Ministry of Truth” for falsifying historical events and “double-think,” the simultaneous acceptance of two contradictory ideas as true. The 1949 novel became a best-seller again after the Trump inauguration.

Now, “1984,” a play by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, based on the novel, is opening on Broadway on Thursday. Earlier productions in London received critical acclaim. But after the election of Mr. Trump, with his frequent complaints about “fake news” and propensity to trade in demonstrable falsehoods, the New York production is swimming in relevance.

Olivia Wilde is making her Broadway debut as one of the play’s stars. The actress, 33, is best known for her role as Thirteen on the medical drama “House.” She has appeared in a number of films, including “Her,” “Drinking Buddies” and “Rush,” and she starred in “Vinyl,” the HBO series about the recording industry.