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Dale Morris & 6th @ Penn Theatre Present
Oedipus at Colonus
by Sophocles
Directed by George Ye
Translated by Dr.
Marianne McDonald
Through April 25,
2004
Wed-Thurs-Fri-Sat:
8:00 PM
Sunday 2:00 PM
Or make telephone reservations at: (619) 688-9210
OEDIPUS AT COLONUS
 This
tragedy, written by Sophocles, is set in and around Colonus, a
district of Attica in ancient Greece, which is about one mile
northwest of the Dipylon or 'double-gate' leading out of Athens.
Colonus was one of the twelve separate communities that were a
part of the mountainous countryside surrounding Athens, and which
were later fused into the single Athenian city-state by Theseus,
the national hero and king of Athens, a generation before the
legendary battle of Troy. Theseus appears in this play as king of
Athens and friend of Oedipus.
After his fall from power (described by Sophocles in his earlier
tragedy Oedipus Tyrranus / Oedipus the King), the disgraced
Oedipus takes refuge in the groves of Colonus during his self-
imposed exile from his former kingdom of Thebes. (Another account
notes that Oedipus was exiled by his sons and Creon). Thebes was
the capital of the adjacent district, lying just north- northwest
of Athens. Oedipus' loyal daughter, Antigone, follows him into
exile and, later, Creon, who is the new regent of Thebes. Oedipus'
other children -- a daughter, Ismene, and his elder son,
Polyneices -- also visit him at Colonus.
The scene of the play is set in a grove sacred to the Erinyes or
Furies (also known as the Eumenides, "kingly ones"). It is
significant that Oedipus chooses to serve out his last days on
earth in atonement before this shrine. In Greek myth, the Erinyes
or Furies were avenging spirits who punished, without any mercy,
all those who wronged their own family members, especially those
who committed murder within the family circle.
This play is the last of Sophocles' three plays set within the
framework of the familiar legend of Oedipus, which dates back
several centuries before Sophocles' time. In terms of setting, the
play adheres closely to the Aristotelian principle of the unity of
place. All the action takes place in and around the grove and
focuses on Oedipus, the central character. To achieve a rustic
setting within sight of Athens, Sophocles used some form of stage-
flats or painted scenery to depict the rocks and trees of the
Grove, as well as a backdrop of Athens viewed from a distance. In
addition, an equestrian statue of Poseidon, the lord of Colonus,
was in full view on the stage.
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Program Notes for Oedipus at
Colonus
Sophocles (ca. 496-406 BC) is the playwright of heroism.
Oedipus at Colonus describes the end of Oedipus, a hero who
in his search for his own identity defines all of us. Sophocles
wrote in 5th century BC Athens, but his plays are as alive today
as they ever were.
Sophocles was born at Colonus and it is said that he
wrote Oedipus at Colonus just before he died at the age of
ninety. He used a chorus from it to defend himself when his son
took him to court and claimed he was senile. He was acquitted.
The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta had been raging
since 431 BC. This play was performed after Sophocles died in 401
BC, after Athens had lost the war in 404 BC.
Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, and Oedipus at
Colonus are often called Sophocles’ "Theban Cycle," but they
were not originally performed together as a trilogy on a single
day. Instead they span Sophocles' life. They are arguably the
greatest plays ever written. They trace not only the rise and fall
of one man, but also the whole civilization of classical Athens,
and in that they also reflect the life of all passionate human
beings whose excesses constitute both their downfall and their
glory.
The spark of freedom is what Prometheus first gave man,
and it blazed in Oedipus. As Yeats said, "Whatever flames upon the
night, man's own resinous heart has fed." Oedipus' freedom was to
find out who he was and rage against the obstacles along the way.
What has often been called his hamartia, his "flaw," is the
fire that made his glory. Antigone shared both his flaw and glory:
she went to death defending what she saw as right. Neither Oedipus
nor Antigone compromised even when others might claim they should
have. Athens did the same and lost the war, but won the glory of
lighting the cultural fire for the western world, whose flames
have never been quenched. They founded the Olympics of the human
mind and spirit.
As Pericles said in his funeral oration for the fallen
dead in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians
knew that happiness was based on freedom, and freedom on a brave
heart. Oedipus lost happiness, but exercised his freedom; he did
not “go gentle into that good night." He raged even until he
entered Colonus. His rage may have been his ruin (see Oedipus
Tyrannus 673-75), but it fanned his vital energy which
maintained him "against the dying of the light."
Oedipus at Colonus shows us the aged Oedipus more
accepting on one level, but in the process of becoming an angry
demigod on another. At the opening he says three things have
taught him to endure all of life’s blows: suffering, time, and
nobility. If this endurance is meant to imply patience, we find
this refuted by Oedipus' rage against his son Polynices, which
clearly shows us that there is still some of the old Oedipus left.
He curses his sons as he goes off to fulfill a blessing for Athens
as the city's patron hero in return for refuge.
Besides hate, Oedipus shows love, which he says is the
main gift he has given his daughters. He says they have been loved
by him more than by any man, and this love compensates in part for
their sufferings. Athens will give Oedipus hospitality and a
welcome with philia, the love/duty one renders an honored
guest. Oedipus upholds the ancient creed of helping one's friends
and harming one's enemies. At the end of his life, Oedipus rewards
the faithful (his daughters/Theseus/Athens) and curses the
faithless (his sons/Creon/Thebes). His final power is to bless and
curse. Oedipus accepts his death, but he will not give up his
right to choose.
Sophocles describes Oedipus as a cliff assailed by storms, beaten
by the wind and rain. Yet he survived the worst storms that fate
sent. Sophocles’ story of Oedipus is a celebration of the human
spirit. In this, his last play, Oedipus shows the true greatness
of a man who endures in spite of his tragic knowledge about both
the universe and himself. Sophocles shows the courage of a human
being who refuses to give up. Oedipus is vindicated by the gods in
his final transformation. Sophocles likewise was worshipped in his
own hero cult. Both have blessed the generations who came after
them.
Marianne McDonald,
Ph.D., MRIA
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 Marianne
McDonald (Translator/Arts Patron) is Professor of Theatre and
Classics in the Department of Theatre at UCSD, and a member of the
Royal Irish Academy. A recipient of many national and
international awards, she has also written many articles and books
including: Euripides in Cinema: The Heart Made Visible
(Centrum Press, 1983), Ancient Sun, Modern Light: Greek Drama
on the Modern Stage (Columbia University Press, 1992), Sing
Sorrow: Classics, History and Heroines in Opera (Greenwood,
2001), Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedies
(Methuen, 2002), and the The Living Art of Greek Tragedy
(Indiana University Press, 2003). She has translated and written
versions of many Greek tragedies: her Sophocles’ Antigone
was directed by Athol Fugard in Ireland (1999); her version of
Euripides’ The Trojan Women was directed by Seret Scott at
the Old Globe Theater (2000); her translation of Euripides’
Children of Heracles (dir. Delicia Turner Sonnenberg) was
performed at 6th at Penn (2003); her Medea, Queen of
Colchester (dir. Kirsten Brandt) at Sledgehammer theatre
(2003); translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus at 6th
at Penn (dir. George Ye, 2003).
http://www.mmcdonald.info
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 Jack
Banning* (Oedipus) |
 Beth
Bayless (Antigone) |
 Robin
Christ (Ismene) |
 Jim
Chovik (Polynices) |
 Joe
Nesnow (Creon) |
 Von
Schauer (Thesius) |
 Michael
Moerman (Chorus) |
| George Soete (Chorus) |
 Gerard
Maxwell (Chorus) |
 Michael
York (Guard) |
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 George
Ye (Director/Sound Design) |
| Jeff Wells (Stage Manager) |
| Eric Lutze (Lighting Design) |
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 Matt Scott (Set Design) |
| Shulamet Nelson (Costume Design) |
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THEATER REVIEW
Actors give 'Oedipus' a modern spark
By Anne Marie Welsh
THEATER CRITIC
April 12, 2004
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DATEBOOK
"Oedipus at
Colonus" 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m.
Sunday, through April 25. 6th@Penn Theatre, 3704 Sixth
Ave. Hillcrest $15-20.(619) 688-9210
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The blind man who's guided by his daughter toward a
rocky altar at 6th@Penn Theatre is no longer the proud,
riddle-solving ruler of Thebes. Suffering has brought
Oedipus low. Contaminated and reviled, he's blinded
himself and been exiled by the men of his own family. Like
all refugees, he seeks safety. Yet as actor Jack Banning
portrays Sophocles' ancient hero, he's not the most
likably pathetic victim of fate either. He's prickly. And
though he's preparing to die, he intends to settle a few
scores before he does.
Banning's curmudgeonly strength coursing through the
pathos is just one of the surprises in director George
Ye's strongly acted, if uneven, production of Sophocles'
last tragedy. It opened Saturday at the Hillcrest
storefront and plays through the end of the month,
offering a close look at what actors call a character's
"arc," or emotional journey.
Banning's Oedipus transforms before our eyes during the
action. When he walks at last into the golden beams
beckoning him toward death and Hades, he knows himself. He
can again lead others. He's ready and he's blessed. No
wonder Lee Breuer and Mabou Mines adapted the play as a
rousing gospel musical, faith bringing redemption after
suffering.
Banning played another wanderer in Euripides' "The
Children of Heracles," also fluently translated by UCSD
classics' guru Marianne McDonald for a 6th@Penn production
last year. There, he was a lovable protector of children,
steady, despite his desperation, and quixotically funny as
he attempted the feats of a younger man.
There's humor, perhaps not all of it Sophoclean, in
McDonald's direct language and the actors' timing in this
play as well. But it's of a different, more philosophical
order. Here Oedipus confronts not just himself and other
men (hypocritical Creon, his power-mongering son Polynices,
and the virtuous Athenian Theseus) but also the gods and
his fate.
In one of Ye's most effective devices, he creates a
prologue in which three masked figures – the Fates,
perhaps, or the Furies inhabiting the grove at Colonus –
appear disembodied. Something big and mysterious is at
work here. You hear it in the sound which riddles the
scene with otherworldly music and in the Zeus-sent thunder
and lightning when Oedipus' time has come.
And you hear it in the terrifying curses that Banning's
Oedipus lays upon Polynices, the man who's raised an army
to invade Thebes to wrest power back from his younger
brother. With Jim Chovick as the supplicant son pummeled
by a father's ringing denunciations, the scene is the most
potent of the evening. Forget reconciliation. Oedipus
prophesies a bloodbath, and like belligerent leaders
since, Polynices won't turn back.
It's no wonder Freud made this cursed family so central
to his understanding of human emotions. We're beyond the
father-murder and incestuous marriage of "Oedipus Tyrannos"
when this sequel begins. But the gender types Sophocles
explored in 401 B.C. still resonate.
Two loving daughters are both moving and effectively
differentiated by Beth Bayless as loyal, resourceful
Antigone, and Robin Christ as a more emotional Ismene.
They contrast with the egotistical sons battling for
supremacy, with Chovick's Polynices fruitlessly invoking
the aid of the father he had abandoned. And in the wake of
all this, their city-state is doomed by a family feud.
Notable performances also come from Von Schauer, both
warm and noble as Theseus, and from Joe Nesnow as the cool
statesman Creon.
Director Ye hasn't solved all the challenges of the
stand-and-deliver declamation that can stiffen ancient
choral speaking in the contemporary theater. A more
confident use of the visual stylization that lends
strangeness to the opening and the Polynices' scenes would
enliven a production already solid at the core.
Playwright: Sophocles.
Director: George Ye. Costumes: Shulamit
Nelson. Lighting: Eric Lotze. Set: Matt
Scott. Dramaturg: Douglas Easterly. Cast:
Jack Banning, Beth Bayless, Robin Christ, Joe Newnow, Jim
Chovick, Von Schauer, Michael Moerman, George Soete,
Gerard Maxwell, Michael York, Marcus Netherton.
Anne Marie Welsh: (619) 293-1265;
anne-marie.welsh@uniontrib.com.
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