THE BOARDS BODY POLITIC

Assuming you paid attention in English class or have a glancing familiarity with Freud, you probably know how “Oedipus Rex” ends.

- Zach Helfand

This poses a problem for modern restagings—the big twist is pretty much spoiled. A new version on Broadway, “Oedipus,” starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville and directed by Robert Icke, has devised a solution: throughout the play, a big clock onstage teasingly counts down to the moment of unsavory revelation.

On a recent morning, Strong, whose Oedipus is a politician waiting out Election Night, was visiting Federal Hall, on Wall Street where the original U.S. Capitol Building once stood, to ponder political power, the ancient Greeks, and time, which was short—he had a performance that evening. To keep on schedule and, perhaps, to inspire his own revelation, Strong himself was on a countdown clock. Time: sixty minutes. After some settling in, the ticking began.

Strong’s character has an Obama-like idealism, some Newsom-esque ambition, and a Trumpian narcissism, but he didn’t model him on any real politician. “You look at all these people who are running the world, it’s a bunch of fucking weirdos,” he said outside the building. “What is that about? I wanted to play Oedipus as close to me as possible.”