Joshua Roman is a patrician cellist, natively drawn to restraint rather than flashiness.

Janác˘ek’s (Fairy Tale), one of the gems of the cello literature, is filled with fleeting glimpses and rays of magical illumination. Roman delivered admirably, again staying always within tasteful bounds. Here, Vonsattel proved solid without revealing the breadth of tonal variety the piece invites. He seemed more attuned to the classical logic of the Beethoven that opened the program and the Brahms F-major Cello Sonata that closed it. In the Brahms, Roman was true to character, his attack and tone remaining smooth where other cellists might choose to inject grit. The slow movement was an exercise in tenderness, never saccharine, exuding a spirit of musical chastity that old-timers might associate with the British contralto Kathleen Ferrier. That spirit carried over to the encore, the second of Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style, which was caressed like a tender lullaby.

Anew theater troupe opened its inaugural Santa Fe season this month. The Oasis Theatre Company, which has relocated here from upstate New York and is performing at the Teatro Paraguas space, offered David Mamet’s

Mamet unveiled the piece in 1977 as an hourlong radio play for the acclaimed NPR series

(starring William H. Macy, with John Cusack among the supporting actors) and went on to adapt it into a two-act, full-evening stage play. The latter retains aspects of the broadcast version, with “radio actors” conveying some of the plot at microphones while a sound-effects person adds atmosphere from the side; but it also portrays some scenes as normal stage action, yielding the flavor of a multilayered metadrama. The radio version seemed perfect in its proportions — just the right length for the suspense of its story, its verbal exchanges moving at an