Oedipus
06 February 2025
Old Vic
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
The theatre world was rocked last year when two separate London productions of Oedipus were announced on the very same day. The question on everyone’s mind was, which one will win out in adapting the ancient text to a modern stage piece that holds up to the audience’s scrutiny. Now that the Old Vic production is in full swing, we have the very obvious answer.
Having seen last year’s stellar Robert Icke production with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville in the lead, it is a tough one to live up to. Having managed to adapt the text to a modern setting that deeply spoke to contemporary audiences by transposing themes of political schemes and scandals onto the 2500 year old play, it was a profoundly impactful production. Deftly weaving the main plot points into an impassioned story of political ambition, giving a very believable cover for neither Jocasta nor Oedipus himself having any idea of their shared history, it was a master stroke of modernising a classic. Big shoes to fill for the Old Vic production premiering a couple weeks after Icke’s closed. But how does it actually measure up?
Ella Hickson’s adaptation definitely leaned closer to the original text, not bothering with modernisation of the setting or plot, but instead infusing it with contemporary dance to booming drumbeats and chanting, opting for a stripped-back aesthetic that plays with sharp contrasts of light and darkness, periodically plunging the auditorium into complete darkness. Stylistically, it’s an oppressive, stark look with gorgeous movement, heightened by high-contrast lighting on the writhing bodies of the dancers representing the Greek chorus. The setting is an ancient Thebes filled with religious fanatics screaming for blood sacrifice to end the drought that has befallen the land.
Much of the play is staged towards the audience, filling in for the Theban people looking to their king as well as their religious leader Creon. While this works well visually, sound effects of crowds reacting to the action are played throughout, like a laugh track on a 90s soap opera, which does significantly cheapen the production, giving it a feel of a cheesy TV drama rather than a theatrical experience. The dance troupe is not utilised to stand in as the Theban crowd during these scenes, though they do get to indulge in expressionistic dance sequences in semi-darkness between scenes.
However, the dance sequences drag on throughout, taking up approximately half of the 100 minute playtime, reducing the time to examine the plot to just under an hour. This means sacrificing depth and expansion of the plot, history, and emotional ties between characters, leading to a somewhat disjointed performance. While both leads work hard to present the material they have been given, Indira Varma’s Jocasta feels emotionally distant, barely rocked by the big revelations about who Oedipus actually is, nonchalantly suggesting they run away and continue to live together, and eventually abandoning her daughters just seconds after claiming she never could leave them behind. Rami Malek as Oedipus is not convincing in his performance, partially due to his reliance on his signature stoic acting style, partially due to the odd accent and intonation, and partially due to the two leads being only 8 years apart in age, and Varma’s Jocasta reading a lot younger on stage, thus making it difficult for the audience to accept that Oedipus is her son, no matter how young she was when she had him. He reads as unconcerned with the mounting pressures of being king of a dying people, emotionally detached from his wife and children, almost bumblingly naive.
The generally subdued reactions to revelations that should deeply affect the characters, and the clipping of plot in favour of long contemporary dance sequences leads to a disjointed performance that is more style than substance. Gorgeous to look at, but a very plain retelling of the story that does not transport it to a modern audience in a way that would emotionally move them. The dance sequences are the best part of the production, though they do linger too long, not fully replacing the Greek chorus in explaining anything, barely showing the emotional state of the Thebans through physical movement, if that is your sort of thing. My personal recommendation would be to give this one a miss, it’s 100 minutes of stylistic choices that lack depth or emotion, 100 minutes of sharp contrast lighting with a thin plot that doesn’t hold any surprises nor emotional build-up to the big revelations of the play.
