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Myth gets new life as a riveting thriller
The Guardian
|October 17, 2024
It begins with a birth certificate. A politician standing for election promises to prove his origins to the nation after his opponent has questioned them (a dig at Donald Trump in relation to Barack Obama's heritage?).
Even so, he questions the nativist idea that birth is crucial to belonging.
Of course, the ancient Greek drama on which Robert Icke's play is based is all about origins and the tragedy of Oedipus's cursed birth.
Icke has modernised Sophocles' story but kept the ancient names.
The statesman, Oedipus, is intent on truth-telling and full disclosure but it is just this that leads to his downfall.
Icke, who directs too, has form with modernising Greek drama from his 2015 adaptation of Aeschylus's Oresteia. This play has already been performed in Dutch in 2018 and at the Edinburgh international festival in 2019.
This story is from the October 17, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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