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The Theatreguide.London Review
Oedipus
Wyndham's
Theatre Winter 2024
Robert Icke’s version of Oedipus gives the basic plot of Sophocles play a contemporary setting, new dialogue and new minor characters
It opens with filmed footage projected onto a huge screen of Mark Strong as the suited politician Oedipus standing outside a public building speaking to camera on election night, surrounded by a cheering crowd carrying placards.
He pledges if elected to produce his birth certificate to allay suspicions surrounding his origins and to launch an investigation into the death of the former ruler Laius.
The screen lifts to reveal Oedipus arriving at what might be a campaign room containing some of his team, including his leading assistant Creon (Michael Gould), who is uneasy that Oedipus has made what he regards as distracting pledges.
Towards the right of the stage stands a huge digital clock counting down the time till the election results. Televisions perch about ten feet above either side of the stage playing newsreels with their sound turned down. At various points in the show, we will hear a low ominous soundscape underpinning the dramatic tension.
Merope (June Watson), the woman he believes to be his mother, arrives wanting a private word they have no time for. She will return later to reveal an inconvenient truth about his origins.
More surprisingly, a blind tattooed stranger has been sitting amongst the campaigners. He rises to give Oedipus a prophecy connected to the pledges.
After kicking him out of the room, Oedipus pulls the unlocked sliding doors shut and starts being sexual with his wife Jocasta (Lesley Manville), one of several intensely sexual moments between the couple. But no sooner has she removed her underwear than someone slides open the doors to chat with them. Like other things in this production, the scene seemed improbable.
Two of the campaign tables are then pulled together for a family meal with Oedipus's adult children. Like other families, they laugh, swap the odd story, and bicker.
His daughter Antigone (Phia Saban) seems reflective. The sons Eteocles (Jordan Scowen) and Polyneices (James Wilbraham) are playful, chucking balls at each other and occasionally chasing each other around the room. At one point as a joke that scares everybody, one of the sons jumps on the table waving a loaded gun.
Most of the stage time is given to the brilliant performances of Mark Strong and Lesley Manville whose private scenes are the show's heart.
As the election result grows closer, Oedipus learns more about his origins. The Sophocles account is modified in various ways. It turns out that Oedipus accidentally killed Laius 34 years earlier in a car crash and Jocasta reveals to Oedipus, when there is no one else around, that Laius effectively raped her at age 13. The quietly emotional disclosure of what she suffered at the hands of Laius fully engages the audience in contrast with much of the play.
Robert Icke’s version of the classic may lack the poetic power of Sophocles, be unrealistic and imply we might be better off not knowing the truth about the past, but it is well-directed and entertaining.
Keith
McKenna
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