Robert Icke’s new adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex opens with recorded footage of Oedipus (Mark Strong) in an outdoor press conference surrounded by supporters holding placards that show the politician in the style of Shepard Fairey’s Hope image of Barack Obama. The polls have closed in an election predicted to bring a landslide victory to Oedipus following years of coalition governments – the last unified leader being Laius, the deceased first husband of Oedipus’s wife Jacosta (Lesley Manville).
Promising to bring honesty to his leadership, Oedipus, unprompted, promises to do two things: to release his birth certificate to put to bed questions over his heritage and to launch an investigation into the death of Laius to address rumours over a cover-up. It’s a slightly odd note to start on: too slick and overpolished overlaid with the now-overworn cliche of Obama-style posters and Donald Trump’s birth conspiracies about his predecessor – even if it seems like an obvious contemporary parallel to draw.
With the scene set, Icke moves from video to stage and the party campaign offices (a sleek set by Hildegard Bechtler) as Oedipus and his family await the results – the events playing out in real-time with the ominous red numerals of a large digital clock counting down in the corner. It’s a close-knit affair with just his daughter, Antigone (Phia Saban), his sons (Jordan Scowen and James Wilbraham) invited, with campaign manager and brother-in-law, Creon (Michael Gould, excellent) wallowing in the fringes.
His mother, Merope (a wonderfully morose June Watson), invites herself into proceedings with a request to speak to Oedipus alone in private but finds herself repeatedly palmed off in favour of food or for Oedipus and Jocasta to break away for a romp.
The night is interrupted by the prophesying Teiresias (Samuel Brewer) whose three predictions send it off on its careering spiral towards its shocking conclusion. Icke’s foreshadowing is sometimes overkill, especially when you get the sense that everyone here knows how the story ends: Jocasta’s moan of ‘baby boy’ as Oedipus’s head between her legs is met a combination of light laughter and queasy groans from the audience.
But beyond these distractions, Icke, who also directs, allows the tension to slowly build as each revelation in turn drives the story on towards its unalterable end. It is helped on its way by star performances from Strong and Manville – Strong ratcheting himself tighter and tighter by his inability to shy away from the truth and Manville slowly disintegrating as the reality of her past comes is cast out into the light, undoing them both.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (Very good)
Oedipus is at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until 4 January 2025
