PICT Classic Theatre to present “Oedipus Rex”
One of the oldest plays known, “Oedipus Rex” will be performed by PICT Classic Theatre March 23 through April 8.
“Oedipus Rex,” written by the famous Greek playwright Sophocles, tells the story of King Oedipus who calls upon his brother Creon to talk to Apollo about why his town of Thebes has this curse laid upon it.
When Creon returns and says that the cruse will only be lifted if the murderer of the former king, Laius, is found and prosecuted, Oedipus sets out to solve the crime.
Through his investigation, Oedipus, who was abandoned as an infant and raised by an adopted family, discovers that he was the one who, unbeknownst to himself, murdered his biological father and then ended up marrying his biological mother.
“Sophocles wrote it about two and a half thousand years ago, along with other Greek classic playwrights,” said Alan Stanford, artistic and executive director of PICT and also the director of this performance. “All the major themes of all those writers are the same themes that have been written and rewritten over the past 1200 years.
Even though the play was penned long ago, the themes are still relevant today according to Stanford.
“It is a play about hubris. Even though I choose to do it some time back, it is right to the point now,” he said. “It is about the frailty of the human condition. That, they alone, can solve all problems. That usually comes up when someone starts out being a problem solver and they end up being a dictator and fate usually has a hand and brings them down.”
While many might be familiar with the classic tragedy, Stanford said that this particular version has never been done before including the dividing up of the traditional Greek chorus into individual characters.
The play, presented at Union Project at Highland Park, will also be staged in a unique way that will give a different perspective to the audience.
“We are using an alley stage. You have the audience on two sides and the play takes place down the middle. We have staged two different plays and we managed to make the space seem like a different place each time. It allows the actors to work on an eye-to-eye basis and the audience looking into them,” explained Stanford. “We are creating in the space the parched earth of the Mediterranean rim. We are creating an environment in which the play takes place,” explained Stanford.
“So what the audience will experience is almost the way the Greeks wrote their theater was that theater came out of religion, the worship of the gods and the prayer circle that started to formulate itself as what we understand as theater. Theater then was performed very much as a ritual. What the audience will see is a group of very good actors speaking beautifully and a modern story taking place before their eyes.”
Stanford said that despite the age of the play, audiences will still find the performance relevant.
“I have a basic belief and it is this: nothing changes except fashion and technology. People are people are people,” he said. “The human condition is the human condition and human frailty doesn’t change. People are what people are. We go through cycles.”
Tickets can be purchased online at picttheatre.org and questions about tickets can be answered by calling 412-561-6000 ext. 207.
Tickets start at $15 and the show is appropriate for all ages.
In addition to having a wonderful time at the performance, Stanford hopes the audience walks away with something additional.
“What I want them to take away from any play that we do is that I want them to see a little bit of themselves,” he said. “It must entertain, that is the first priority and second it must, as Shakespeare said, ‘Hold a mirror up to nature.'”