It’s election night time in Robert Icke’s “Oedipus,” a contemporary retelling of Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” that should be the buzziest, if not the chicest, Broadway providing of the autumn season.
The manufacturing, a prestigious London import that opened at Studio 54 on Thursday below Icke’s sensible and glossy course, stars a charismatic Mark Sturdy within the title position. His elegant and urbane Oedipus, a politician on the cusp of a momentous victory, prides himself on not enjoying by the outdated guidelines. A straight talker who has made transparency his calling card, he often veers off script in paroxysms of candor, to the chagrin of Creon (John Carroll Lynch), his brother-in-law who has been steering the marketing campaign to what seems to be like a landslide victory.
However “depend no mortal pleased until / he has handed the ultimate restrict of his life safe from ache,” because the refrain intones on the finish of Sophocles’ tragedy. There isn’t a refrain in Icke’s model, however the sentiment holds, as Oedipus unravels the puzzle of his identification with the identical relentlessness that has introduced him to the brink of electoral triumph.
Anne Reid, left, and Olivia Reis in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
A birther conspiracy has been raised by his political opponent, and Oedipus, talking impromptu to reporters on-screen initially of the play, guarantees to launch his beginning certificates and put an finish to the controversy. What’s extra, he vows to reopen an investigation into the loss of life of Laius, the previous chief who died 34 years in the past below circumstances which have allowed rumor and innuendo to fester.
Oedipus calls himself Laius’ “successor, the heir of his legacy,” and in true Sophoclean trend he speaks greater than he is aware of. Jocasta (Lesley Manville in high type), Oedipus’ spouse, was married to Laius, and so Oedipus is occupying his predecessor’s place in additional methods than one.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus confronts a plague that has been laying waste to Thebes. In Icke’s drama, which had its premiere in Amsterdam in 2018, the pathogen is political. The civic physique has fallen ailing. Oedipus sees himself as a solution to the demagogic manipulation that has wrought havoc. The water is poisoned, financial inequality is uncontrolled and immigrants have turn into a straightforward goal. Sound acquainted?
Icke’s Oedipus has an Obama-level of confidence in purpose and reasonableness. His direct, pragmatic method has seduced voters, however has it deluded him into considering that he has all of the solutions? Oedipus is an ingenious drawback solver. Puzzles entice his eager mind, however he must study the distinction between a paradox and a riddle.
Mark Sturdy, left, and Samuel Brewer in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
His daughter, Antigone (Olivia Reis), a scholar who has returned for her father’s massive night time, ventures to make the excellence: “One’s acquired an answer — one’s simply one thing it’s a must to stay with?” However Oedipus is in no temper for tutorial hairsplitting.
A countdown clock marks the time till the election outcomes will likely be introduced. That hour, as audiences conversant in the unique tragedy already know, is when Oedipus will uncover his true identification.
Merope (Anne Reid), Oedipus’ mom, has unexpectedly turned up at marketing campaign headquarters needing to talk to her son. Oedipus fears it has one thing to do along with his dying father, however she tells him she simply wants a couple of minutes alone with him. Pondering he has every thing below management, he retains placing her off, not understanding that she has come to warn him about revealing his beginning certificates to the general public.
The dealing with of this plot gadget, with the canny veteran Reid wandering out and in of the drama like an informational time bomb, is a little bit clumsy. There’s a prattling facet to Icke’s delaying techniques. His “Oedipus” is extra prose than poetry. The household dynamics are nicely drawn, although a tad overdone.
Mark Sturdy and the forged of “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
Reid’s Merope and Reis’ Antigone, ferocious of their other ways, refuse to play second fiddle to Manville’s Jocasta relating to Oedipus’ affections. Manville, who gained an Olivier Award for her efficiency in “Oedipus,” delivers a efficiency as sublimely seething as her Oscar-nominated flip in “Phantom Thread.” Endowed with a formidable hauteur, her Jocasta acts graciously, however with an unmistakable observe of condescension. As Oedipus’ spouse, she assumes sexual pleasure of place, which solely exacerbates tensions with Merope and Antigone.
Oedipus’ sons, Polyneices (James Wilbraham) and Eteocles (Jordan Scowen) are given private backstories, however there’s solely a lot home battle that may be encompassed in a manufacturing that runs just below two hours with out interruption. And Polyneices being homosexual and Eteocles being one thing of a philander can be of extra curiosity in an “Oedipus” restricted sequence.
When Sophocles’ tragedy is completed proper, it ought to resemble a mass greater than a morality story. Oedipus’ story has a ceremonial high quality. The bounds of human understanding are probed as a sacrificial determine challenges the inscrutable order of the universe. Icke, who views classics by means of a contemporary lens (“Hamlet,” “1984”), is maybe extra alert to the sociology than the metaphysics of the tragedy.
Oedipus’ flaws are writ giant in his rash, heated dealings with anybody who stands in his approach. Icke transforms Creon right into a middle-of-the-road political strategist (embodied by Lynch with a mix of vanity and long-suffering persistence) and blind Teiresias (a stark Samuel Brewer) right into a mendicant psychic too pathetic to be a pariah.
Mark Sturdy and Lesley Manville in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
However Oedipus’ strengths — the keenness of his thoughts, his heroic dedication to fact and transparency — mustn’t be ignored. Sturdy, who gained an Olivier Award for his efficiency in Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge,” exposes the boyish vulnerability throughout the subtle politician in his sympathetically beguiling portrayal.
Wojciech Dziedzic’s costumes remake the protagonist into a contemporary European man. But true to his Historic Greek lineage, this Oedipus is nothing if not paradoxical, suavely having fun with his privilege whereas brandishing his egalitarian views.
The manufacturing takes place in a windowed workplace set, designed by Hildegard Bechtler with a medical and wholly modern austerity. The furnishings are eliminated because the election night time attracts to its conclusion, leaving no place for the characters to cover from the unwelcome information that may upend their lives.
What do they uncover? That every thing they thought they understood about themselves was constructed on a lie. For all his brilliance, Oedipus was unable to outrun his destiny, which in Icke’s model has much less to do with the gods and extra to do with natural instincts and social forces.
When Oedipus and Jocasta study who they’re to one another, ardour rushes in earlier than disgrace calls them to account. Freud wouldn’t be shocked. Nevertheless it’s not the psychosexual dimension of Icke’s drama that’s most memorable.
The ending, impeded by a retrospective coda, diminishes the total cathartic impression. However what we’re left with is the astute understanding of a particular type of hubris that afflicts the extra gifted politicians — those that imagine they’ve the solutions to society’s issues with out recognizing the ignorance that’s our widespread lot.
