Classical Receptions in Drama and Poetry in English
from c.1970 to the Present

Set: The simple set design represented visually the contrasts in the play between property and poverty, power and disenfranchisement, ancient and modern. At the rear of the stage a deep purple curtain hung from the wall and trailed on to a stack of old sacks and papers. Further piles of sacks and papers ringed the stage propped up to the rear by an old blue oil drum. At the front of the stage (right) a pile of stones simultaneously suggested the northern setting and doubled as an altar. These were offset, front stage left, by a heap of sacks. In Jocasta's extended scene with Oedipus a purple rug provided a domestic context, together with a reclining sofa back.

Non-verbal sound: The Chorus entered clicking stones and striking metal bars. This combined ritual with harshness.

Costume:

Chorus - brown rustic, sackcloth.

Oedipus - Business suit with lavender tie and matching handkerchief. Blue shirt, sandals (no socks). Blue bandages around ankles.

Creon - Suit with open-neck shirt and yellow handkerchief. Multi-coloured scarf.

Teiresias - brown fur fringed cloak. Sandals. Loose brown shirt. Beads and scarf round neck. Shaven head. Long crooked stick.

Jocasta - black trousers and top. Blue-grey patterned coat with cutaway tail. Ear rings. High heeled black sling-back shoes. For her desperate visit to the altar she wore a fur collared long coat (fur same shade as the rug).

Male Messenger - Safari suit with light embroidered scarf.

Female Chorus member as messenger recounting Jocasta's death - dark maroon apron and head cloth over the light coloured chorus clothes represented visually the adoption of a different perspective.

Dress was used to mark key points in the action. For example, as the truth began to dawn, Jocasta took the shaggy purple rug from the floor and put it round Oedipus – an ironic use of the symbol of domesticity to signal ‘Otherness’. He was made to look like a bear, at the beginning of a process of liminality and exile.

After the revelations by the Messenger, Oedipus returned tie-less and with his shirt hanging out.Then his jacket and shirt were removed by the Chorus and replaced by a rough light coloured shirt. He was now thought to be of insignificant parentage (the Chorus has just referred to Jocasta’s possible dismay at discovering she has a low born husband. Light brown shirt and trousers align Oedipus with the shepherds and ordinary people.

Performance reviewed : 15th November 2001, The Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon.

The performance alluded to its northern setting and contemporary events with a light touch that integrated these coherently into the action and production values. The opening Chorus was resonant with allusions to the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease on British farms in 2001 (‘farmers with nothing to farm’). Alongside the town/country contrasts were class oppositions, signalled partly by contrasts in dress (colour-coded). The imagery of commerce alternated with that of the northern countryside (Oedipus described Teiresias as like ‘a castrated ram lost on a hilltop'). The dialogue between Jocasta and Oedipus was permeated by references to foreigners and gypsies as the likely killers of Laius. The description of Jocasta’s death drew on Hughes-like images of a ruthless countryside (she was like a ‘crow or a vixen some farmer had snared and strung up’.) There was a coup de théâtre at the end when Creon, initially a John Prescott look-alike and now hard and cynical, grabbed two female members of the Chorus and pretended to the distraught and blinded Oedipus that they were his daughters. After Creon’s ‘You’re not in charge anymore, I am’ he gave Oedipus a white stick and the former ruler repeated, falteringly, the exact pattern of Teiresias’ earlier exit.

back to Reviews List

Classical Receptions in Drama and Poetry in English from c.1970 to the Present

Oedipus

A Review by Professor Lorna Hardwick

Classical Receptions in Drama and Poetry in English
from c.1970 to the Present