Class adds a modern twist to 'Oedipus'
An update version of Sophocles' classis story takes center stage this week
By Monica Booker, staff writer
Posted on April 24, 2006

Late 19th-century Austria comes to the stage this week as the school of theatre and dance presents ”Oedipus Rex,” a play developed out of professor Tom Arthur’s fall 2005 seminar in Sophocles’s “Oedipus.” The class wrote its own version of the text and then the final piece emerged from a collaboration of the favored scripts.

The class developed ideas of Oedipus in Hollywood, the Vietnam War, in a bullfight and in hell. The class eventually developed the final setting for the production.

“A late nineteenth-century Austrian setting was selected because it reflects a period on the verge of cataclysmic war, and because Sigmund Freud, whose famous ‘Oedipus complex’ owes much to the Sophocles work, was present at that time and place,” Arthur said.

Junior Brandon Ferraro stars as Oedipus in the production.

“Oedipus Rex” opens in Latimer-Shaeffer Theater in Duke Hall, Tuesday, April 24 and will continue to show through Saturday, April 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale in the Harrison Hall box office, located in room 1107. Admission is $6 for children and for JAC Card-holders and $8 for general admission. Due to the subject matter, “Oedipus Rex” is recommended for a mature audience only.