We all think we know the story of "Oedipus," the guy who killed his dad and slept with his mom.
But if Robert Icke's pulse-pounding Broadway production is any indication, Sophocles' 2,500-year-old Greek tragedy still has the ability to shock.Lesley Manville, who costars with Mark Strong in the play,recently recalled to Stephen Colbertthe verbal reactions she hears from audiences as the political drama hurtles toward its dark, unsettling finale.
"It says something a bit sad about us as a culture, that a lot of us feel we have to pretend we know the story of Oedipus when we don't," Icke says. Sitting in the theater, "the way that people are gasping and knocked off their perch suggests that they can't have known the story. And that's OK! It doesn't always have to be that everyone has read every work of literature ever. God knows I haven't."
Icke's adaptation sets the action in present day, as politician Oedipus (Strong) and his wife, Jocasta (Manville), await the results of an election, which he's expected to win in a landslide. But anxiety sets in as they camp out in campaign headquarters with their grown children: First, as a blind intruder (Samuel Brewer) crashes the party and delivers a grim prophecy; and second, as Oedipus' mother (Anne Reid) delivers the startling news that she is not actually his biological mom.
Harrowing revelations about corrupt leaders, child rape and grooming come to the fore, and a stop-clock on the back wall counts down the minutes and seconds until the play's most paralyzing realization.
"These Greek myths are so powerful because they're so unflinching in terms of what they talk about," Icke says. "It's a story that reminds us that we don't really know ourselves, and that's the existential terror that these characters are in. The terrible cost of actually finding out who you are can really devastate you."
In writing this modern version of "Oedipus," Icke was largely inspired by the 2016 U.S. presidential election betweenDonald Trumpand former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As most Americans can recall, Clinton was widely expected to win going into the night.
The idea of her confined to one place, forced to reckon with the results, seemed to lend itself well to a play like "Oedipus."
"I remember there was a delay in Hillary making her concession speech," Icke says. Presumably, "she was in her hotel suite with Bill and her team and her advisers, and they were trying to work out what to do. I remember thinking, 'That's one of the rare moments for a global political figure where she really is stuck.' When she comes out, it's either going to be to concede or to challenge, but there's no avoiding that situation."
The Clintons have recently been in the headlines, as theyagreed to give depositions to a House committeeabout accusedlate sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Bill Clinton is among the political and business leaders who socialized with Epstein and showed up in the Epstein files. He isnot accused of wrongdoing, and the Clintons have they said had nothing to do with Epstein for more than 20 years.
Icke says that Epstein "wasn't a particularly huge story" when he first mounted this concept of "Oedipus" in Amsterdam in 2018.
"But obviously now, particularly for American audiences ‒ and with the news being what it is ‒ there's this monologue (in the play) that feels very resonant with that situation," Icke says. The former first lady recently came to see the show, "and I'd love to know what went through Hillary's mind as that story unfolded, in lots of different ways."
Icke has reimagined a multitude of classic dramas throughout his career, and will next stage "Romeo & Juliet" with Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe in London's West End beginning next month. For the British writer and director, putting a new lens on old stories is part of the "glorious tradition" of theater.
"You look at the pleasure that people get out of 'Wicked,'" Icke says. " 'You know "The Wizard of Oz?" What if we look at it from here and maybe we'll see something completely different?' "
For him, "there's a healthy mixture of being entirely present in the now with what's happening in the world, but also acknowledging we're part of a continuum that connects us with an audience who sat in Athens to watch a play two-and-a-half thousand years ago. There's something amazing about that."
"Oedipus" is now playing through Feb. 8 at Studio 54 (254 W. 54thStreet).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Oedipus' is more 'resonant' than ever amid Epstein files
