What if a birth certificate--or lack of one--WAS the smoking gun for a political candidate on the cusp of winning an election?
That's the question posed by writer/director Robert Icke in his absolutely absorbing update of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, a spoiler-proof tragedy even for those who never have read the Greek original. The production begins with a video interview of the charismatic title character, played with chilling assurance by Mark Strong, projected across the entire stage. He smoothly promises to share his birth certificate immediately following his election to demonstrate that he is a man of the people, a product of the rural countryside despite his opponent's insinuations otherwise, and to investigate the death of a former strongman which has left years of political chaos in its wake. When the curtain lifts, Creon, his adviser (John Carroll Lynch as you've never seen him before, credibly playing a Brit), and his wife Jocasta (the incomparable Lesley Manville) are aghast. But Oedipus insists it must be done; truth is his brand.
Although Oedipus the King likely was likely the first reading on the syllabus for the Humanities course that defines Columbia's core curriculum, I've never seen it on stage and I couldn't imagine it having the believability and emotional impact that Icke, a young Turk from the West End (which seems to breed them) has given it with an almost unbearable injection of pedophilia and superb performances all around. Am I actually sobbing in Studio 54, a place I remember with nothing but fondness? Do I feel as invisible as the old woman Oedipus believes to be his mother (Anne Reid, 90 and still going strong), but for whom he has no time on election night despite her desperation to protect him from the political scandal that will surely follow his election? How is it possible that I recalled the prophet's name, Teiresias, more than 50 years since being introduced to him when I can't remember the names of the characters in the novel I'm currently reading? Did one of Antigone's siblings really just call her a see-you-next-Tuesday?
Icke's contemporary spin even manages to give the play a gay angle nearly 2500 years after it was first performed, at a time when same-sex relationships didn't require a label. When his youngest son, Oedipus's favorite, tattles on an older brother's infidelity during a family celebration, the implicated brother retaliates by asking why he didn't bring his boyfriend. Despite his eventual support, the king isn't necessarily cool with his son's homosexuality but he lauds him for admitting the truth while simultaneously making the strongest and most succinct case I've ever heard for coming out to your parents.
Things don't go so well for Oedipus by the time the two-hour clock, which escalates the tension every passing minute, flashes to zero. As the insanely clever sweatshirt I nearly bought on my way out blares: "truth is a motherfu**er." And I won't even mention the use to which he puts one of his birth mother's stiletto heels after a final coupling that elicits more audible gasps than the cunnilingus that precedes it. YUCK!
