But the tumultuous events of the last four years have lent new resonance to the debate, even as the evolving Republican and Democratic coalitions have made it more complex.
The production is lent further Ellingtonian resonance by its choreographer, Mercedes Ellington, the Duke's granddaughter.
As it abruptly crosscuts among the five friends, it fails to lend the characters' individual stories enough dramatic resonance to make us care about them.
Three hurricanes in the last 20 years have lent resonance to certain names.
It also offers a classic example of Pinter's ability to lend a local circumstance universal resonance.
The show is reliant on the "very special episode" concept, attempting to introduce contemporary social issues to lend greater emotional resonance to episodes.
It is the parallel and complex emotions that arise in the physician - and the patient - that lend resonance to a clinical tale.
The cardinal's conversations with Adrian are full of provocative and amusing theological asides that lend resonance to the book's thematic concerns.
Employed deftly, it can lend a simultaneous warmth and public resonance.
Handsomely photographed, "Institute Benjamenta," has a similarly visual fixation on eccentric details and small objects illuminated to lend to them mystical symbolic resonance.