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In an uncommon undertaking, Court Theatre is staging the entire Oedipus cycle – Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone – over the course of a year. Greek tragedy, reputed as boring and stuffy, is rarely done justice, when it’s done at all. Court’s dramatic enterprise supposedly juxtaposes the Oedipus story with contemporary black experience, unpacking questions of black agency and comparing the journey of the House of Cadmus with the Great Migration and Chicago’s founding.
As a techie myself, I always look at a show’s use of technical elements, and Oedipus’s were on point. The set, all white, cast their use of color in sharp relief: Thebans in white, the polis and populace united; Oedipus in loud purple, proudly broadcasting his royal lineage (later we see his blood is of a similar shade); Jocasta in a bitter green, jealously guarding what little she hasn’t yet lost; Creon in pale silver, a royal hiding among the commoners. It’s a simple, blank stage with a ground-level apron, a raised main playing area, and tall, steep steps rising in the back. Three channels were carved into the second level, one for each of the psychological incisions in Oedipus’s understanding of himself. It was grand and palatial, but the walls were textured and sectioned in a way reminiscent of a padded cell, taking the audience deeper into Oedipus’s interiority. The set was supplemented with some strong imagery – primarily color, as described above. An orb, glowing a soft orange, figured as a prenatal Oedipus, doomed from birth, but was also reminiscent of Apollo, god of the sun and the power behind the Delphic oracle whose prophecies bring doom upon the House of Cadmus. That connection relied on an a priori understanding of Apollo and Delphi, however. Court cut the text extensively, swapping the choral odes (and the exposition and context they hold) for dance breaks that just didn’t work. They were too abstract, detached from the rest of the show. That said, there were some stunning stage pictures created when this abstraction was used to support rather than supplant the text. The cast’s performance, though, was strong. Kevin Rolston, Jr.’s powerful, compassionate Oedipus; Christopher Donahue’s exasperated Tiresias; Timothy Edward Kane’s slippery, constantly hedging Creon. They forged through the play full steam ahead, clocking in at a brisk 75 minutes (!!!), imbuing it with a momentum rarely seen in classic productions. I think that’s the most consistent element throughout the show – immediacy. From the set to the sound to the movement, director Charlie Newell seems to have approached Oedipus Rex with an undeniable sense of now. I can’t say it all worked for me, however. His attempts to update the show with movement interludes interrupted the play’s narrative flow and, frankly, communicated nothing, a stylistic holdout divorced from the show on stage. The purported connection to the Great Migration is, as far as I can tell, completely unearned. Court’s production is timeless, untethered in time and space. History, by its very nature, is not. Perhaps the sequels will further illuminate their vision, but Oedipus fell flat. Contemporary audiences deserve classic shows, and vice versa. Oedipus Rex absolutely merits modern interpretation and contains many lessons for modern struggles; but like Oedipus’s lust for knowledge, Newell’s dogged drive for a relevancy proved a double-edged sword. The drama was gripping and powerful, but ultimately half-baked. Court Theatre put forth an admirable effort in this show but, like its hero, was ultimately blind to its own shortcomings.
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