Oedipus

Wyndham's Theatre, 21/12/24

Credit: Manuel Harlan

Final rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Starting off this modern retelling of a Greek story, we see Mark Strong as Oedipus, giving a rising speech off the back of his campaign video for election as political leader. Then, as the screen rises, the set reveals the election office, where the rest of the action takes place. Watching Mark Strong paired with Lesley Manville as his wife leaves no doubt that we're witnessing star power on stage. But it was an overarching feeling of wanting more that I left this production with, rather than a sense of awe.

In the corner of the room, a digital clock is counting down to zero - a trick to increase the tension and give the effect that the election outcome is playing out in real time. When it hits zero, Oedipus wins the election by a landslide, a moment that will change his life forever. But this, unfortunately, acts as the downfall for me. Once we hit this moment, the entire thing falls flat on its face. The thing we were all expecting to happen, happens. All that's left is to reveal Oedipus is married to his mother, and then that's it. Although Icke does add in a dramatic jump scare and have the mother (Jocasta) shoot herself, and to see her blood-splattered brains on a glass screen. But by the time we got to this point, all the shock that this moment was looking to draw felt completely unearned.

This adaptation adds in the role of Oedipus' adopted mother, Merope, who is played terrifically by June Watson. In her cold portrayal, she provides commentary that almost feels like it is a nod to an in-joke with the audience - like being appalled at some of the jokes about sex at the dinner table. It almost foreshadows the inappropriateness of the revelations about sex to come. But - in other areas - I felt the script felt completely flat. In its attempt to foreshadow and parallel, it felt like the obvious information was being spoon fed to the audience in a sense of desperation. The references to mothers, sex, all the hints just made the reveal fall even more flat for me. That - and the fact that the family scenes - like the intimate exchanges between Oedipus and his sons (e.g. one is forced to come out as gay in front of the family) just didn't really work as I imagine the playwright hoped. It didn't add another dimension of character but merely acted as a delay to the inevitable election outcome. I couldn't really gel with any of these characters.

The overall production just didn't feel unique to me - everything I felt I had seen before, and although it was pretty much an 'all eyes on Strong and Manville' type production, it wasn't enough to satisfy me. The story is, at its heart, an unbearable love story. But some of the details here were confused, and the dialogue at times was not presented as tragic but rather as a throw-away comic devices, or bland bits of information that served no purpose other than to feed the audience something they'd need to remember for later. So, on balance, this isn't one to write home to mummy about.