It\u2019s election night in Robert Icke\u2019s \u201cOedipus,\u201d a modern retelling of Sophocles\u2019 \u201cOedipus the King\u201d that must be the buzziest, if not the chicest, Broadway offering of the fall season.<\/p>\n
The production, a prestigious London import that opened at Studio 54 on Thursday under Icke\u2019s smart and sleek direction, stars a charismatic Mark Strong in the title role. His elegant and urbane Oedipus, a politician on the cusp of a momentous victory, prides himself on not playing by the old rules. A straight talker who has made transparency his calling card, he frequently veers off script in paroxysms of candor, to the chagrin of Creon (John Carroll Lynch), his brother-in-law who has been steering the campaign to what looks like a landslide victory.<\/p>\n
But \u201ccount no mortal happy till \/ he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain,\u201d as the chorus intones at the end of Sophocles\u2019 tragedy. There is no chorus in Icke\u2019s version, but the sentiment holds, as Oedipus unravels the puzzle of his identity with the same relentlessness that has brought him to the brink of electoral triumph.<\/p>\n
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Anne Reid, left, and Olivia Reis in \u201cOedipus.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Julieta Cervantes)<\/p>\n
A birther conspiracy has been raised by his political opponent, and Oedipus, speaking impromptu to reporters on-screen at the start of the play, promises to release his birth certificate and put an end to the controversy. What\u2019s more, he vows to reopen an investigation into the death of Laius, the former leader who died 34 years ago under circumstances that have allowed rumor and innuendo to fester.<\/p>\n
Oedipus calls himself Laius\u2019 \u201csuccessor, the inheritor of his legacy,\u201d and in true Sophoclean fashion he speaks more than he knows. Jocasta (Lesley Manville in top form), Oedipus\u2019 wife, was married to Laius, and so Oedipus is occupying his predecessor\u2019s place in more ways than one.<\/p>\n
In Sophocles\u2019 play, Oedipus confronts a plague that has been laying waste to Thebes. In Icke\u2019s drama, which had its premiere in Amsterdam in 2018, the pathogen is political. The civic body has fallen ill. Oedipus sees himself as an answer to the demagogic manipulation that has wrought havoc. The water is poisoned, economic inequality is out of control and immigrants have become an easy target. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n
Icke\u2019s Oedipus has an Obama-level of confidence in reason and reasonableness. His direct, pragmatic approach has seduced voters, but has it deluded him into thinking that he has all the answers? Oedipus is an ingenious problem solver. Puzzles entice his keen intellect, but he will have to learn the difference between a paradox and a riddle.<\/p>\n
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Mark Strong, left, and Samuel Brewer in \u201cOedipus.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Julieta Cervantes)<\/p>\n
His daughter, Antigone (Olivia Reis), a scholar who has returned for her father\u2019s big night, ventures to make the distinction: \u201cOne\u2019s got a solution \u2014 one\u2019s just something you have to live with?\u201d But Oedipus is in no mood for academic hairsplitting.<\/p>\n
A countdown clock marks the time until the election results will be announced. That hour, as audiences familiar with the original tragedy already know, is when Oedipus will discover his true identity.<\/p>\n
Merope (Anne Reid), Oedipus\u2019 mother, has unexpectedly turned up at campaign headquarters needing to speak to her son. Oedipus fears it has something to do with his dying father, but she tells him she just needs a few minutes alone with him. Thinking he has everything under control, he keeps putting her off, not knowing that she has come to warn him about revealing his birth certificate to the public.<\/p>\n
The handling of this plot device, with the canny veteran Reid wandering in and out of the drama like an informational time bomb, is a little clumsy. There\u2019s a prattling aspect to Icke\u2019s delaying tactics. His \u201cOedipus\u201d is more prose than poetry. The family dynamics are well drawn, though a tad overdone.<\/p>\n
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Mark Strong and the cast of \u201cOedipus.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Julieta Cervantes)<\/p>\n
Reid\u2019s Merope and Reis\u2019 Antigone, ferocious in their different ways, refuse to play second fiddle to Manville\u2019s Jocasta when it comes to Oedipus\u2019 affections. Manville, who won an Olivier Award for her performance in \u201cOedipus,\u201d delivers a performance as sublimely seething as her Oscar-nominated turn in \u201cPhantom Thread.\u201d Endowed with a formidable hauteur, her Jocasta acts graciously, but with an unmistakable note of condescension. As Oedipus\u2019 wife, she assumes sexual pride of place, which only exacerbates tensions with Merope and Antigone. <\/p>\n
Oedipus\u2019 sons, Polyneices (James Wilbraham) and Eteocles (Jordan Scowen) are given personal backstories, but there is only so much domestic conflict that can be encompassed in a production that runs just under two hours without interruption. And Polyneices being gay and Eteocles being something of a philander would be of more interest in an \u201cOedipus\u201d limited series. <\/p>\n
When Sophocles\u2019 tragedy is done right, it should resemble a mass more than a morality tale. Oedipus\u2019 story has a ceremonial quality. The limits of human understanding are probed as a sacrificial figure challenges the inscrutable order of the universe. Icke, who views classics through a modern lens (\u201cHamlet,\u201d<\/a> \u201c1984\u201d<\/a>), is perhaps more alert to the sociology than the metaphysics of the tragedy.<\/p>\n Oedipus\u2019 flaws are writ large in his rash, heated dealings with anyone who stands in his way. Icke transforms Creon into a middle-of-the-road political strategist (embodied by Lynch with a combination of arrogance and long-suffering patience) and blind Teiresias (a stark Samuel Brewer) into a mendicant psychic too pathetic to be a pariah.<\/p>\n Mark Strong and Lesley Manville in \u201cOedipus.\u201d<\/p>\n (Julieta Cervantes)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n