Lost in interpretation

Stratford show misses mark with shouting, sneering

When the protagonist of Oedipus Rex finally learns, beyond a doubt, that he has indeed killed his father and married his mother, he not unnaturally goes into shock. So too, in the new Stratford production of Sophocles’ tragedy, do his subjects, the people of Thebes, represented on stage by the chorus. They fall to the ground and just lie there. While they’re supine, the messenger who brought the news that precipitated the revelations steps daintily among them and picks their pockets. And in that one tawdry moment the entire tone of Daniel Brooks’ production is perfectly encapsulated.

Now it’s true that the messenger, who’s come all the way from Corinth, has made it plain he expects a tip for his pains; that, however, was before the full implications of his news had become apparent. There’s no indication in the text that he’s either stupid or a scoundrel. This revival, however, is one of those that take “interpretation” to mean presenting everybody in the worst possible light, starting with the title character. It’s a cheap way of appearing edgy and, by now, an old-fashioned one.

I invoked “text” so I should issue a caveat: like all non-classicists I have to depend on what translators tell me for my impressions of Greek tragedy. But, listening carefully to the translation used here (by Stephen Berg and Diskin Clay) and dissociating it as best as I could from the spin the actors were putting on it, I could hear nothing that contradicts the opinion that Oedipus, in his opening speech, is genuinely concerned for his plague-stricken people.

That’s not what the actors are playing, though; instead they’re indulging in a sneering contest. It’s also a shouting contest, but more of that later. Oedipus seems to resent these pestiferous commoners invading his space; they, through their spokesperson — the priest in this version is a woman — all but allege that the plague is his fault. Which it is; but they don’t know that yet.

Oedipus is rash and arrogant. The rashness led him to unknowing parricide and the arrogance to equally unwitting incest. Having saved the city by solving the Sphinx’s riddle he gladly accepted the throne and the widowed queen who came with it. He’s proud, certainly, but the flip-side of that is a determination, once it’s been revealed that Thebes is under a curse, to uncover its source, whatever it costs him.

Oedipus is complex, but this production has him striking a simple continuous note of self-righteous self-pity. It also permits or maybe just obliges Gord Rand, a more than good actor, to limit his vocal range to a sustained shout, which is monotonous. At the end, after the truth has come out and he has blinded himself in an agony of guilt, he stumbles back on stage, naked and bloody, and shouts some more. When he asks to see, or rather touch, his little daughters, they run from him, crying in terror: the one truthful and affecting moment in the evening.

Brooks is usually a director with a firm grip on style. He still has it here; or at least be he can be credited with having an angle. The production is in modern dress, with much shoving around of chairs and a table in moments of stress. The plague is evoked by having characters wear masks and spray sanitizer about. The chorus take turns lining up at a microphone to deliver their pronouncements: fair enough, they’re the voices of the people, responding to events as they happen, though some members are better at it than others.

Individual supporting performances are good with Yanna McIntosh’s Jocasta convincing as brisk queen, loving wife and terrified mother, all at the same time, and Christopher Morris is an excellent Kreon, except when he too starts shouting. Kevin Bundy plays the corrupt Corinthian with mischievous flair, dubious as the concept may be. Best of all is Nigel Bennett, truly frightening as the blind seer Teiresias, accused by Oedipus of lying for money, and decked out in dark glasses, earrings, and green high heels, in reference to his mythological status as a hermaphrodite, something that the play never mentions but that certainly spices things up. The same actor then reappears, movingly, as the old shepherd compelled into giving Oedipus the information he knows will destroy him. Lally Cadeau plays the attendant who brings the news of Jocasta’s suicide and Oedipus’ self-mutilation, and who here seems oddly unbothered by it. Indeed she gloats, just like the production.

In repertory until September 18