I attended a preview performance of Oedipus on Friday 10th October, and this review may contain "spoilers".

Well contrary to popular opinion I don't just like musicals but I am quite partial to a bit of high drama too - onstage that is - not in my private life! So I had high hope for this with a stella cast of 24 (plus 4 kids) lead by Ralph Fiennes in the title role and David Burke, Jasper Britton, Alan Howard, Malcolm Storry and Claire Higgins amoung the cast. With ticket prices ranging from just £10 - £28 you cannot claim it is not value for money!

The staging is on the top of a "globe " of weathered copper which very, very slowly revolves. This oval suface looked tricky to work on and many of the company looked uncomfortable. How Claire Higgins managed in those high heeled stilletos I do not know! The prodcution is in mocern dress - black suits for the men.

I was less than gripped by this production ( hence the fascination with the revolve ) which runs at about an hour and a half without interval. I was never convinced by the acting as they all were clearly "acting" especially Ralph Fiennnes who projected, declamed, spat, threw himself to the floor, tore at his hair and chewed up the scenery - what little there was. I was never convinced of the tragedy of a man who killed his Father and slept with his Mother - oops I warned you this post had spoilers. Perhaps a fault of the direction or the new script by Frank McGuiness. It will be interesting to see what the reviewers make of it - I may be out of step, but no more than 3 stars for me!

It's mostly sold out but where did you get ticket prices from £10 - £28 from? Top prices are £41 - still cheaper than the WE but a but of a shock after getting used to Travelex £10 tickets!

These are preview prices. It is sold out - I got a return and payed £28 for a seat in the centre block row J.

Product placement?! lol

Oh we LOVED it - the chorus are the stars of the show though, really superb, half sung, half spoken.

Set is stunning. Ralph and Clare Higgins give BIG performances admittedly but it is a greek tragedy in the Olivier and I think at the perfect pitch.

Trying to get more tickets as it blew me away...

It is a big, classy NT revival, which we haven't seen much of this year so I was very excited about that aspect too.

It will be huge.

Really solid entertainment and Claire Higgins is especially wonderful, but the production all felt a bit old fashioned to me.

I'm really excited about seeing it live after studying it 20 odd years ago for my Classical Studies and having to make do with the BBC version.

I have seen it on Thursday. I suspect it was return, because when i tried earlier in the week i was told it was sold out. Anyway, i had a superb seat. Middle of row H Stalls. I couldn't ask for a better one. And i paid only £22.50.

The set is very simple, yet excellent. I thought lighting in particular was great. They managed to disguise the big stage quite well. The play is in modern dress, which piss me off to no end. This is one of my pet hates lol. I know theatre is about suspension of belief, and all that, but i still find it very off putting when i see a man wearing a suit, and tie talk about Appollo lol.

I have never seen, or read the play before, so i have nothing to compare it to. Personally, i didn't like the "singing" of the chorus mentioned above.
I thought the acting was very good. Ralph was very good especially towards the end. He REALLY made me shiver when he came back on stage towards the end (I don't want to describe the scene, but it is not for the faint hearted).
Like all Greek Tragedies, it is over the top, lol. I have to say though, overall, i didn't find it that enthralling, or captivating. It was an OK evening, but not that special. I am glad i have seen it, because i am big fan of Ralph (I think he is an excellent actor), but i am afraid it is closer to "also have seen" rather than "memorable".

Finally, i have always thought that Freud's theory about Oedipian Complex is nothing but psychobable and loads of rubbish, now after seeing the play, i am convinced of that .

<oldjoke> Freudianism is when you say one thing but mean your mother. </oldjoke>

LOL... never heard that one ~ funny

You are using "old fashioned" pejoratively I suppose. Why ? Many great recent productions have been "old fashioned" - The Chalk Garden and Ivanov to name but two. It is surely more interesting to see a different NT interpretation of a Greek tragedy than one which simply apes Katie Mitchell's more modish approach ? (Which actually I would also class as being old fashioned (pejoratively) in a different way) .

The best NT Greek tragedy I have seen was "Antigone" (dir. Peter Gill) which just had the actors on an empty stage in modern dress - no staging devices or tricks, no singing, no masks, no music.

I had never seen a Greek tragedy before so have nothing to compare it to. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, exactly - it's not an easy watch, but did think it was a very good production. I liked the chorus singing, I felt it added to the impact. It was very gripping, especially in the middle section, with excellent work from Claire Higgins and Alan Howard, but sadly Ralph Fiennes in the central role just didn't convince me (and he is getting more like Rigsby with every performance!)

SPOILERS?



I saw Oedipus with my AS drama group last night with high expectations from my drama teacher. I've never seen Greek Tragedy before so was perhaps unprepared for the show and I know it's a different style of acting/drama to now but...

Ralph Fiennes had two emotion levels for the beginning scenes one where he projected to the audience with his classical pronounciation and one where he shouted, banged his fist on the table and raised his voice. The first scene was heavy going and he didn't really help this by speaking in mono tone. HOWEVER the last scene (as those of you who have seen it will know) was amazing and he was finally convincing as his character which won me over. His performance was weird but perhaps is typical of greek tragedy?

It was a good production, the set was very effective and i loved the huge effect with the door when Oedipus made his final entrance. But I would not see it again, once was enough. What are other peoples thoughts?

I saw today's matinee & absolutely agree with Polly1 that these 2 were the best performances. Claire Higgins gets better every time I see her. Incidentally, for unknown reasons, Alan Howard failed to take a curtain call at this afternoon's performance - anyone know why?
I disagree with Polly1 about Ralph Fiennes, however. Oedipus is a highly melodramatic part & it is hard to play it otherwise, particularly in the final section. I found the whole 90 mins totally gripping.
Can any of you Greek tragedy experts enlighten me on the difference between the Sophocles & Seneca versions of Oedipus? I saw the latter - also at the National - in the 60s. It also played without an interval & starred John Gielgud & Irene Worth. The director was the great Peter Brook. My main recollection of it was an enormous ###### on the stage which caused a great deal of controversy at the time. Otherwise, I have insufficient memory to make a comparison. (well, it happens to most of us eventually )

I'm intrigued... An enormous what?

Sphynx?

Vagina?

I'm no good at puzzles. Six letters and controversial...

I can't think of a word for it which has 6 letters either. It was a giant yellow phallus, I think. There's a story that Coral Browne said in a loud whisper to her companion: "Anyone we know, dear?"

A little over 450 years, and Seneca's version is in Latin. Seneca's gross-out factor is a lot higher, if you can believe it.

The confusion has arisen as, although I used a FIVE letter word, I was then censored with six asterisks. The word I used was ###### & in case it is censored again, is a perfectly appropriate alternative word for phallus. Have we REALLY reached the stage when such a word is censored? Perhaps this site is running a "Bring back the Lord Chamberlain" campaign! LOVE the Coral Browne quote!

My God it HAS been censored again! The word can be derived from the 1st letters of peter, edward, neil, iain & stewart. I think admin on here has some SERIOUS explaining to do. It is OUTRAGEOUS that this word has been censored & I cannot imagine that ANYONE would disagree on this point.

Interesting! A whole array of euphemisms get through, several of which I wouldn't say in front of my mother, yet only the proper term is censored. But vagina isn't. Bizarre!

What did you expect? You do realise, don't you, that this is an automatically applied list of words? If it was filtered out the first time then it was obviously going to happen the second time. Your shock at this doesn't ring true.

Anyway, this is a theatrical discussion forum. It's not as if the word is an essential part of conversation.


That's because very few spammers are trying to flog vagina enlargement surgery.

An unimpressive answer Matthew. Censorship is censorship is censorship. Get ready folks for expressions such as ***** up your ears, **** Whittington, **** a doodle doo & the well known book ***** Hill. I am from a generation that marched in the streets of London for the abolition of theatrical censorship - almost 40 years later it comes back on a site devoted to theatre. How incredibly tragic & inappropriate.
The word I was using was a non-slang word to describe what appeared on stage at the end of the National's 1960s Oedipus. It was essential as far as I was concerned. I should not have to go searching in a thesaurus every time I contribute to this site to satisfy the Mary Whitehouses of this world.

Mary Whitehouse did not have to put up with the huge amount of spam which infects the web - although she would have probably objected without even having an internet connection. To echo Matthew, it is not one of the moderators, but the programme software which is altering your message.

Vagina is not as common a word in such messages but I suspect (we don't program which words are blocked) that a small blue pill known as **** will have the name obliterated. Just testing!

Yep it does! Even from a moderator!!

Although it seems to put out a random number of *.

OK, I'll explain in detail.

To start with, let me explain about search engines. Suppose you have a page dedicated to a subject such as, say, meerkats. You have quite a few references to meerkats on your page so the search engines will bring it up when someone searches for "meerkats". The more you mention meerkats the higher your page will appear in the listings.

But that's not all. If any sites link to your page and those links contain a reference to meerkats then those references also count towards your score. The more people who link to your page with a suitable title in the link, the better you do in the rankings,

This has led to the rise of link spammers. Link spammers track down places on the Internet where they can post text containing links (such as most forums) and add their own posts containing nothing but keywords and links to the site they're trying to boost. This is a major problem for many forums, including this one.

You don't get to see most of the posts because we can get to them quite quickly, but search engines can get to them even faster so in order to make the spammers' pages ineffective until a moderator or administrator can take action most forum software blanks out the most common trigger words. This renders the forum useless as a way of boosting rankings. It has nothing to do with sexuality: some words associated with popular software are also blocked.


You see, here's the thing. When you're on the Internet you are making use of other people's equipment and services, and that means you have to play by their rules. Most people who offer services for free don't appreciate spammers abusing those services so they take action to thwart the spammers. That may have a trivially minor effect on other people. Live with it.

If you really need to use a word you can see that it's blanked out when you use the preview function and then you can put a space in the middle of it so it won't be recognised. That's how I was able to mention Ad obe Photoshop in a previous post about word filtering. If it was really censorship then you wouldn't be able to work around it so easily.

And here's another thing. Nobody actually believes your outrage. You're deliberately making a mountain out of a molehill. Desist.

Goodness gracious we have gone off topic!! Mock outrage!!

"Desist"! Daniel, I hope you're chastened. You're lucky it wasn't in red.

"That's because very few spammers are trying to flog vagina enlargement surgery."

I've been laughing at this for a while. Not a great business idea, possibly.

Fair enough. You appear to have the measure of me Matthew lol - well, are'nt we entitled to be theatrical on here? This correspondence is now closed - Ed

I must say I agree with the first post. I was very disappointed with this performance. My only previous experience of Greek Tragedy was Zoe Wannamaker in Electra at Chichester Minerva Theatre - now that really did grip the emotions and held me spellbound. Oedipus bored me - the smart modern suits didn't help either - looked like The Office wandered in off TV. Only good point was the chorus.

Quite agree. Saw the matinee of Oedipus today and thought it sad stuff. The only good thing was the set of palace doors - magnificent. They would do well for Richard Strauss's opera Elektra too.
But when the characters wandered in in those M & S suits - it was like a conference of hedge fund managers in the credit crunch crisis. Creon was indistinguishable from the chorus. Even the great Alan Howard didn't make much impact. I disagree about the chorus. I sympathised with the way they had been directed. It was just plain embarrassing with those Harrison Birtwhistle type wails. The whole thing was uninvolving, unmoving, dull and and over-hyped. Fiennes as Oedipus didn't begin to delve the depths of the play. And the McGuinness text was reductive and often inappropriate. Ghastly.

My heart sinks but I'm buoyed up by the fact that no one has mentioned anything going up or down or around. Or am I wrong?

Yeah, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it does go around. But VERY slowly - almost imperceptibly - so it shouldn't rile you too much.

I didn't even notice it was going round to start with but once I had it became very distracting.

It goes round just the once. But it takes one hour forty minutes to do a full turn, so it m-i-g-h-t drive you up the wall, Lynette. Me, I love a bit of gadget so it didn't bother me.

Job

I found it very distracting too. It revolves at different speeds as well which is even worse. Presumably it had some deep significant meaning or symbolism, but it was completely lost on me. How do the actors cope with it? The table and benches stage right are suspended slightly above the revolve so remain in a fixed position while the revolve, well, revolves. Actors who are sat at this table for any length of time ( and some of the chorus are) have to shuffle their feet to keep in position! You can tell from my close observation of this that I was less than gripped by the drama unfolding on stage!

My eyes will glued to those feet...I wish they had never put in the revolve. Ah well.....

"Presumably it had some deep significant meaning or symbolism, but it was completely lost on me"

It's the globe, innit?

I found it a bit distracting too to start with, wondering how they kept the table still....but stick with it Lynette because you'll forget all that in the last hour or so.

Ok so i'm gonna thow my opinion in here...

I really did not find this play bad at all i thought it was brilliant.

I thought all the actors did a great job, and i really liked Ralph Fiennes's performance he kept my attention and drew me in from beggining to end and i thought he made some very interesting and brave character choices, which i liked alot. Also Claire Higgins was brill as well.

The only thing i didn't think was that good was the chorus, when they started singing i didn't really like it felt a bit weird cause i was all into watching the acting and then these men start wailing lol the only bit i like when when Oedipus joined in with them with the singing and movement, cause for me that felt like they were really in the play then.

So yeah only the chorus i found slightly less brill.

I liked the way Ralph moved as Oedipus, i say this cause i've read a review when the guy really didn't like it and thought it wasn't truthful enough or something and said it was ape like lol...but no was not ape like at all and very relevant i thought.

I could go on, but in a nutshell i thought this was a brilliant production, some things prob could be changed if done again, but all in all a great time at the theatre.


p.s. I noticed the revolve once, it must have been when it went a bit faster but i really only noticed it once it was not distracting for me at all and the person i went with did not mention it as distracting either.

I thought the fact that the revolve completed one revolution over the course of the piece symbolised the passing of a single day, and all that changed in that time.

Yes, dave, exactly. It's the globe revolving over 24 hours, I assumed.

I was told that the revolve also symbolised the radical turn of events that rocks Oedipus'world. Presumably because the stage revolves and the doors are in different places every time he and the others have to go on or off stage (well, sort of) they are somewhat stricken aback by the door being somewhere else.
To be honest, this sounds like an interesting concept but it wasn't really visible in the play itself.

i saw this tonight and i was totally un moved by the entire thing

the plot is pretty much given away in the first 15 minutes and then after that ... (plus most of us know what is going to happen anyway)

the staging and direction is dull. how can such a lavish well funded production get so far at the NT?

clare higgins is good but everyone else fades into the background, including Ralf. i dont feel this is the fault of the actors but Kent giving us another dull production

on the plus side i really liked dove's score and the singing

Have to agree. A really dull production, sold on the back of Ralph Feinnes who didn't do it for me. The characters are so ludicrously slow on the uptake, and nothing actually happens, we are just told about stuff that happened previously. Was it a modern updating, or just a period piece dressed in suits? - there really was no sense of place or time at all. The Frantic Assembly Othello shows how a modern setting can be married superbly to a period play to actually add something. This was just boring.

Yeah, isn't it odd, an month after this post and he still isn't taking curtain calls. Why not ? Couldn't be bothered to hang around for an hour ? I felt a bit short-changed (I thought he was good in the role, incidentally).

"and nothing actually happens, we are just told about stuff that happened previously. "

Ah well, that's Greek drama for you.

I spoke to a classics student and that's exactly what they said to me.

But (and I am ready for the backlash here) stuff happened in the Katie Mitchell "Women of Troy". Whether people enjoyed the radical approach or not, it really wasn't boring.

From memory, and university was a very long time ago, Women of Troy does have some potential for action. There's certainly a lot going on in the background, whereas with Oedipus, its all far in the past. Sadly, I missed the Katie Mitchell one.

I saw it on Saturday (checking for returns paid off) and was impressed despite a horrible cold. The other reason Greek tragedy can be hard going is that it is so unremitting. Unlike say, Shakespeare, it never lightens up for a moment, especially this one.

Sadly, I didn't.

I didn't like this new version of Oedipus much, though the acting was mostly good, it retains little of the lyrical and poetic aspects that you'd know from older translations. The set was lovely to look at, but the whole symbolism of the stage revolving one single rotation very, very slowly seemed like a lot of effort for basically nothing.

Overall I thought it was better than the Alan Howard version in the same venue a decade ago - Peter Hall's use of masks in this and other Greek plays always left me cold. The main problem that all productions of Greek plays seem to have is what to do with the chorus - having them burst into song when rising from (apparently) a pub table just reminded me of a drinking song in a Franz Lehar operetta - about as relevant as the Katie Mitchell Strictly Come Dancing approach. But, that aside, I liked it.

So, that is Jonathan Kent's job application - now let's wait for the Michael Grandage, Rupert Goold and Marianne Elliot ones next year.

It'll be Goold. But, given his maniacal burst of activity recently, he'll want to direct everything in all 3 spaces.