Athenian tragedy comes to life on stage
BRAAMFONTEIN - The tragic story of Oedipus and his family, dramatised around 429 BC by Sophocles, will be staged at Wits Theatre.
I, Oedipus, will offer audiences high tragedy at its best, and features oracles, prophesies, would-be infanticide, monster riddles, plagues and pestilence.
A Corinthian stranger, Oedipus is the one man who could liberate the city of Thebes from the demands of a monstrous sphinx by answering her riddle.
“This single act brings him renown and power,” said the theatre’s Catherine Pisanti.
“It is he who takes responsibility for avenging the death of Laius, to whose rule and marriage bed he has succeeded in order to rid the city of a plague.”
However, he is not a native Corinthian, nor is he a stranger to Thebes.
Oedipus is Theban-born, and son and husband to Laius’ widow, Jocasta – and father-brother to the children they have borne.
“The myth and the network of relations and ethical transgressions it sets up – incest and patricide – are declared by the prophet Tiresias in the first major confrontation of the play,” said Pisanti.
“Tiresias repeats his accusation three times, so we, as the audience, can be left in little doubt as to what Oedipus’ commitment to seeking out the killer in the interests of restorative justice and healing truth must entail. What is important is how the story is revealed and how the action is presented.”
Pisanti said that, as young scholars and artists of theatre, their concern was not confined to the subject of the play, but the stimulus the script presents to today’s theatre-makers.
“This production by a group of nine final-year students aims towards a staging that relies on improvisation harnessed to delivery of heightened text, intercutting fragments of TS Eliot’s great poems, The Wasteland and Four Quartets, with an experiment in shadow play,” she said.
“Oedipus Tyrannus is a play that can speak to us, over the distance of two-and-a-half millennia, in a cogent, albeit allegorical, manner about issues of leadership and accountability in South Africa today.”
I, Oedipus will run from 8 until 10 May, and from 13 until 16 May at Wits Amphitheatre, East Campus, Jorissen Street, Braamfontein, at 7.30pm.
The production is not suitable for children.
Details: www.webtickets.co.za
