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Synopsis The Land of Thebes is dying. In order to restore balance King Oedipus is forced to unmask a killer, but his zealous search uncovers a more terrifying secret. Sophocles' play is a mixture of classical tragedy, whodunnit and political thriller.
Jonathan Kent’s National Theatre production of Oedipus opened last night at the NT Olivier (16 October 2008, previews from 8 October), 13 years after the acclaimed Peter Hall production at the same venue starring Alan Howard, who now returns to play the blind prophet Teiresias opposite Ralph Fiennes in the title role (pictured) and Clare Higgins as Oedipus mother Jocasta (See Also Today’s 1st Night Photos).
In Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy, in a new version by Frank McGuinness, the people of Thebes look to Oedipus to lift a terrible curse from them and their city. He consults the oracle and learns that he must root out the late king’s murderer. But his relentless interrogation of one man after another leads inexorably, and in the space of a single day, to his own savage conclusion.
The cast also features Patrick Brennan, Steven Page, Christopher Saul, David Shaw-Parker and Malcolm Storry. Oedipus is designed by Paul Brown, Kent’s long-term collaborator at the Almeida Theatre and, more recently, the Theatre Royal Haymarket season, with lighting by Neil Austin, sound by Paul Groothuis and music by Jonathan Dove.
Warm, if not rapturous, best surmises the overnight critical response. While Whatsonstage.com’s own Michael Coveney hailed Oedipus as “one of the best performances of Greek tragedy I have ever seen”, not all were in agreement. “An evening of many flaws” was the conclusion of some, with much of the criticism focussed on McGuinness’ translation – “an uneasy blend of stark poetry and … banal colloquialism”. However, there was ample praise for the performances, particularly Fiennes’ “superb” turn in the title role and Higgins’ chilling portrayal of Jocasta. And most critics applauded the play’s relevance, emphasised by Kent’s interpretation of the chorus as “resembling anguished city investors who have just learned that their hedge fund has gone bust”.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) - “This is one of the best performances of a Greek tragedy I have ever seen. And as Sophocles’ fifth-century drama – in a terrific new version at the National by Frank McGuinness, based on a literal translation from the Greek by Kieran McGroarty – is the best in the genre (who am I to disagree with Aristotle?) the 75 minutes of Jonathan Kent’s production are quite something … The play unravels with the gripping fervour of a courtroom drama, Clare Higgins a distraught and blasted Jocasta, Malcolm Storry a sonorous messenger from Corinth, and Alfred Burke the old shepherd who saved the abandoned princeling on the mountainside. Fiennes is superb throughout – enigmatic, tense, compelling - and particularly good at expressing his grasp of unwelcome news in the embrace of the chorus. One false note is struck by the undiluted, simpering awfulness of the child actors as the blind king’s offspring – they seem to have wandered in from prep school in Hampstead – but you can’t have everything, as Oedipus finds out at some cost to himself.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) – “There are many ways of looking at Sophocles' hero. You can see him as a helpless victim of fate or an exemplary seeker after truth. But the bias of Frank McGuinness' version and Ralph Fiennes' performance is to view him as an arrogant, hubristic figure who achieves humility through suffering. And despite advance strictures, McGuinness' translation admirably brings out the play's tragic trajectory … Fiennes is also the right actor to execute this interpretation. He radiates an instinctive hauteur which underscores Oedipus' purblind pride … Alan Howard, Oedipus in Hall's revival, also magnificently reinforces the Beckettian resonance by playing the blind Teiresias as a mocking prophet with an Irish lilt. Jasper Britton deftly captures Creon's transition from condemned truth-teller to heartless power-seeker. And Clare Higgins as Jocasta, whose relationship with Oedipus is overtly sexual, has a great moment when she realises the terrible truth and her face darkens like a city suddenly deprived of illumination.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (three stars) – “Jonathan Kent’s production, with a foot both in camps ancient and modern, still has a terrible fascination about it. Fiennes duly has a big, brave, bold shot at a role that demands the emotional virtuosity of a Gielgud, Scofield or Redgrave and to whose high notes he cannot entirely rise … Frank McGuinness, an always interesting, individual playwright, is not the best of translators … far too much of the McGuinness text, particularly his speeches for the chorus, a group akin to dignified but slightly disturbed MP, sounds preposterous … A shirt-sleeved Fiennes, collapsing in the arms of Alan Howard’s sombre Teiresias or in the lap of Clare Higgins’ oddly subdued Jocasta, who’s dressed up to look unsuitably common, adopts the hunted look of a man on the run. When finally confronted by the truth, he emits a long, muted shriek of pain that chills the blood. He tears open his mouth in a soundless scream of grief. Blinded, he resembles a Beckettian vagrant. It is an evening of many flaws, but as Fiennes demonstrates, Oedipus remains irresistibly terrifying.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) – “At times last night, Fiennes became a bit stilted, something one can’t blame on Frank McGuinness’ translation, which is unaffectedly colloquial — but he rose to the climaxes demanded of him. Confidence became fear became hope became despair. Reassurance turned out to be accusation in disguise. Oedipus was revealed as the poison he had vowed to eradicate. And Fiennes emitted a thin, dry, almost endless wail, his mouth gaping like the horse in Picasso’s Guernica … Maybe the revival is more awesome than moving, but maybe that’s what the tale of the self-destruction of a well-meaning but flawed tyrant should be. It’s also visually impressive, despite boasting no decor but one mighty bronze door, some fleetingly glimpsed trees, and, weirdly, a long trestle table round which gather 14 men who wear dark suits but no ties and themselves vaguely resemble bankers on their uppers. But this chorus doesn’t just chatter or moan. Its dismay, fear, terror rises into chant and, at the end, into a mini-opera of horror and suffering.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (three stars) – “The chorus, 14 men in grey suits resembling anguished city investors who have just learned that their hedge fund has gone bust, sing many of their speeches like ecclesiastical liturgy. Jonathan Dove has written the score, and it strikes me as overblown, constantly distracting from the meaning of the words in the search for emotional effect. Paul Brown’s monumental set … strikes me as similarly over the top, while McGuinness’ translation is an uneasy blend of stark poetry and sudden eruptions of banal colloquialism … Fiennes … isn’t up to the task. He cuts a striking figure, but his tragic anguish always seems to be applied from the outside … There is deeper work elsewhere – Higgins’ terror as Jocasta chills the blood while Alan Howard makes a hauntingly otherworldly Teiresias with his birdlike movements and hooting vocal delivery.”
This is one of the best performances of a Greek tragedy I have ever seen. And as Sophocles’ fifth century drama – in a terrific new version at the National by Frank McGuinness, based on a literal translation from the Greek by Kieran McGroarty – is the best in the genre (who am I to disagree with Aristotle?) the seventy-five minutes of Jonathan Kent’s production are quite something.
The palace at Thebes in Paul Brown’s design is a huge steel portal, burnished and mottled, through which Ralph Fiennes as Oedipus strides confidently in a modern dark suit, an innocent psychotic, perfect political power player, anxious (well, interested) to know why he’s been summoned to save his own city. The old priest (David Burke) has ugly scars and blotches on his torso. The whole place is going belly-up with the plague.
The king’s brother-in-law, Creon (Jasper Britton), brings good news in a bad spell – the gods have said all will be fine once the murder of the previous king, Laius, is avenged – which is rather like saying the economy will be stabilised once the interest rates go back up. And then Kent plays his master stroke: the chorus of elders file on, also suited, like peasant farmers, and they chant their complaints to the glorious music of Jonathan Dove.
Well, they speak as individuals, then they erupt in a corporate lament that is neither embarrassing nor glib. Kent’s cracked the chorus! Who include, by the way, many excellent actors in their own right such as Sam Cox, Russell Dixon (who gets smudged in blood at the end), Neil McCaul, Edward Clayton, David Shaw-Parker, Seymour Matthews and Christopher Saul. They all have a role in the play, and in Theban life.
The stage revolves to reveal a distant tree and the sight of the great Alan Howard as the blind prophet Teiresias, proving the asininity of an ignorant, bitchy preview in the Guardian by Germaine Greer in his delivery of the line “You are who you are seeking to find”, and generally blessing the Fiennes performance with his presence as a significant former Oedipus (on this very stage) ten years ago. He arrives like Pozzo with a Lucky boy on a rope’s length, stalking the stage with his one good leg propped up on a walking stick, eyes obliterated in dark shades, and mines the lines for their Irish cadences and black humour.
The play unravels with the gripping fervour of a courtroom drama, Clare Higgins a distraught and blasted Jocasta, Malcolm Storry a sonorous messenger from Corinth and Alfred Burke the old shepherd who saved the abandoned princeling on the mountainside.
Fiennes is superb throughout – enigmatic, tense, compelling - and particularly good at expressing his grasp of unwelcome news in the embrace of the chorus. One false note is struck by the undiluted, simpering awfulness of the child actors as the blind king’s offspring – they seem to have wandered in from prep school in Hampstead – but you can’t have everything, as Oedipus finds out at some cost to himself.
Fiennes was excellent, but even better was Higins' Iocaste. A very good production, ideally situated in the Olivier theatre - Manos
07 Dec 08
I saw a new concept of the tragedy. Oedipus - in this interpretation he wasn't only the innocent boy punished by the unjust Gods but also for his guilts. He himself was a tyrant (Oidipos Tyrannos),sometimes demagogue, a hard ruler who doesn't tolerate contradictions who easily brings mortal verdict when he feels himself hurted. As he learns the truth who he really is and what he has done the trap closes step by step around him. His ups and downs are heartbreaking and this terrible howl like a whimpering animal is soul-stirring. The knowledge of his own guilt is quite a new concept and requires the modern suits and this style of interpretation which is raw and merciless. Ralph Fiennes is a great actor and he gives a very interesting performance with deep emotions. I saw it twice and he played two different Oedipus. I don't know who is Rigsby or Leonard Rossiter , but the scene where he's crawling on the earth before Creon begging for her daughters was something I'll never forget. The whole staff was wonderful, I specially liked Alan Howard's Clare Higgins' works and the Chorus was extraordinary. - zsuzsanna
01 Dec 08
I saw a new concept of the tragedy. Oedipus - in this interpretation he wasn't only the innocent boy punished by the unjust Gods but also for his guilts. He himself was a tyrant (Oidipos Tyrannos),sometimes demagogue, a hard ruler who doesn't tolerate contradictions who easily brings mortal verdict when he feels himself hurted. As he learns the truth who he really is and what he has done the trap closes step by step around him. His ups and downs are heartbreaking and this terrible howl like a whimpering animal is soul-stirring. The knowledge of his own guilt is quite a new concept and requires the modern suits and this style of interpretation which is raw and merciless. Ralph Fiennes is a great actor and he gives a very interesting performance with deep emotions. I saw it twice and he played two different Oedipus. I don't know who is Rigsby or Leonard Rossiter , but the scene where he's crawling on the earth before Creon begging for her daughters was something I'll never forget. The whole staff was wonderful, I specially liked Alan Howard's Clare Higgins' works and the Chorus was extraordinary. - zsuzsanna
01 Dec 08
I saw a new concept of the tragedy. Oedipus - in this interpretation he wasn't only the innocent boy punished by the unjust Gods but also for his guilts. He himself was a tyrant (Oidipos Tyrannos),sometimes demagogue, a hard ruler who doesn't tolerate contradictions who easily brings mortal verdict when he feels himself hurted. As he learns the truth who he really is and what he has done the trap closes step by step around him. His ups and downs are heartbreaking and this terrible howl like a whimpering animal is soul-stirring. The knowledge of his own guilt is quite a new concept and requires the modern suits and this style of interpretation which is raw and merciless. Ralph Fiennes is a great actor and he gives a very interesting performance with deep emotions. I saw it twice and he played two different Oedipus. I don't know who is Rigsby or Leonard Rossiter , but the scene where he's crawling on the earth before Creon begging for her daughters was something I'll never forget. The whole staff was wonderful, I specially liked Alan Howard's Clare Higgins' works and the Chorus was extraordinary. - zsuzsanna
01 Dec 08
I thought it was only me who kept seeing Ralph Fiennes as Rigsby! Unfortunately this aspect of his performance has become a real distraction of late. He can still at times hold the stage and Greek tragedy is certainly a fitting medium for his somewhat bizzare style of acting. Clare Higgins on the other hand was absolutely magnificent as Jocasta and, supported by a stella cast, Jonathon Kent directs this Frank McGuinness version with verve. I thought the staging was terrific too and literally keeps the action moving along. Great to see the NT back on form. - rds
13 Nov 08
Jonathan Kent's production takes a while to warm up, not helped by an underwhelming performance from Ralph Fiennes who bizarrely seems to be attempting an impersonation of Leonard Rossiter. It became possible to be distracted by random questions: as the stage slowly revolved how come the table and chairs didn't move?; who on earth thought Clare Higgins was old enough to pass as Fiennes' mother?; how did Oedipus get a complex named after him if he had no idea Jocasta was his mother? In fact it was the arrival of Dame Higgins (soon surely) that the play really took off. Her performance radiated power and a growing sense of dread as the awful truth became clear. One wordless shudder of self-disgust and terror was worth the ticket price alone. Following Jocasta's death and his self-mutilation Fiennes came into his own as the play generated genuine horror, helped by excellent supporting players and a great chorus. A slow burner but ultimately this is a fine version of a shocking classic. - David Baxter
05 Nov 08
This is my favourite play of all time and I have to admit that I've seen it done a lot better than this, it's a perfectly adequate production but it's just missing a spark that would bring the whole thing to the boil. Fiennes' performance is strangely muted and the scream moment is a crushing disappointment. Thanfully there are some sterling backups to the lacklustre central performance, with Malcolm Storry putting in good work as Basil Exposition. Maybe it's the fault of the new translation but I just wasn't as enraptured with this production as I have been with other stagings of Oedipus. - QuincyMD
28 Oct 08
Like the last two comments I feel that this is really good in parts but not a five star production, I liked a lot of elements but am less sure about Ralph Fiennes performance nor was I keen on the chorus as I found their singing distracting. - CAA
27 Oct 08
At last I agree with Gareth James, below.What on earth was Ralph Fiennes up to? Even with all the nonsense it was a pretty good showing, but what would Kenny or Kev,Ken S. or Chiwetel or Paterson have made of it? The rest of the cast were sensational and the Chorus amazing.3.5 seems fair. - joesmith
24 Oct 08
It would be 3.5 if it was allowed! I love Greek tragedies and I normally leave them emotionally drained but thrilled. The problem with Oedipus is that, before it even starts, we all know what he doesn't know yet and it takes an hour before he's caught up! There has to be something about this hour that holds you. Here we have a superb chorus (with great music by Jonathan Dove), an elegant set with a pointless slow revolve and a few terrific performances to admire. Ralph Fiennes bizzare interpretation is all over the place, moving from Rigsby to camp to mannered, and conspires to make you lose interest. When it turns, it's good, but by then I'd almost given up. Clare Higgins shines as ever and Alan Howard is very good, but these are small parts in a play where the title character dominates; here, he dominates but doen't captivate so the play ultimately fails. - Gareth James
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