A classic twist
Blood spills in the Latimer-Schaeffer Theatre this week as Oedipus Rex takes center stage
By Monica Booker, staff writer
Posted on April 27, 2006

Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” appears on the Latimer-Shaeffer Theatre stage this week. Professor Tom Arthur directs the classic Greek play of a king who discovers his inauspicious fate as it unfolds under the weight of his kingdom. Despite its beautiful reconfiguration to late 19th-century Austria, this performance of “Oedipus Rex” lacks a necessary rejuvenation of the familiar text, and appears conventionally jaded.

This version of “Oedipus Rex” developed out of  Arthur’s fall 2005 seminar in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” where his students wrote their own version of the text. With this process in mind, no new developments or plot changes made it to the final cut of the script. It’s just Oedipus — and his parental issues, per usual. 

Visually, professor Pam Johnson’s articulate detail to the bodice and gown costumes proved stunning. Colorful jewel-toned gowns complimented the opulent marbled columns of King Oedipus’ palace.

James Lawlor III’s set, dominated by the Greek Parthenon-inspired columns, gave the actors limited performance space. The actors could only move around the columns in places where the audience could see them at all times, leaving them few places for the five or more bodies constantly on stage. These columns became characters themselves, their towering omnipresence making all the other action on stage seem trite compared to their girth. Though appropriate, these phallic figures outweighed the show’s only slight Freudian undertones.

There was a constant pacing and re-arranging of actors in the show, particularly in the chorus, making the show dizzying to watch at times. Actors would say something and then rotate. Although there was a particular urgency with the re-arranging of the actors, the momentum loses its drive in act I due to the lack of new developments on the stage.

Refreshingly, toward the show’s end, senior Kristin Long delivers an exciting monologue of the show’s notoriously gruesome end. The enthusiasm of the climax lifts the show out of its repetitive rearrangement of actors and lines.

The show, however, carries with it an elegant fragility. The lovely costumes and grandiose set give this show its sense of tragedy. Everything in the story is beautiful and yet so cold. Nothing new develops, fate drops in and blood spills. In a way, it is ironic that in such rich surroundings there is a sense of bleak and sterile hopelessness.

“Oedipus Rex” performs in Duke Hall in the Latimer-Shaeffer auditorium through Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $6 with a JAC Card and $8 for general admission.