__BEHIND EVERY GREAT MAN IS A GREAT WOMAN.__
Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.
Starring the internationally renowned, multi award-winning __Mark Strong__ and __Lesley Manville__, Sophocles’ epic tragedy is transformed into an essential, explosive human thriller.
After his revelatory Oresteia, visionary director __Robert Icke__ (1984, The Doctor) reimagines another Ancient Greek tragedy, bringing the secrets of the past bursting into the present.
Following hit runs at Internationaal Theatre Amsterdam and the Edinburgh Festival, Oedipus comes to Wyndham’s Theatre for a strictly limited run from 4 October.
__Assisted Performances__
Audio Described - Thursday 12th December, 7.30pm
Captioned - Friday 15th November, 7.30pm
BSL Signed - Saturday 2nd November, 2.30pm
Lesley Manville delivers an astonishing performance as Jocasta in this lean and pacy production, which reframes Sophocles’ story of incest, power, and ignorance within the context of a political contest. It is election night and Oedipus is on the brink of claiming victory, prematurely toasting his success with his wife Jocasta, their three children, and brother-in-law and advisor Creon (a calculating and slightly unsettling Michael Gould). As they await the results of his sure-fire win, devastating revelations about Oedipus’s true parentage surface, with repercussions for both his family and the country.
The production is astonishing for all the moments when it rests in the affection between Jocasta and Oedipus, whose physical longing for one another is shown very explicitly, or Oedipus for Watson’s Merope who tells him he is adopted in a voice thick with emotion and longing, making every word count. It is also notable for its stillness; all the activity of the early scenes, the playfights and the rushing, ultimately resolve into stark passages where Strong sits or stands, simply listening.
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