Oedipus at Studio 54

I never expected to see Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex performed live on stage. Of all the ancient plays, this one is the most brutal. 

An upstairs hallway
at Studio 54

During our annual December trip to New York last week, Joe and I paused our feel-good activities. We attended a harrowing new adaptation of the Greek tragedy at Studio 54, the former disco and site of so much ’70s and ’80s debauchery. 

After opening as the Gallo Opera House in the 1920s and later becoming Studio 54 during the disco era, the venue has reinvented itself once again, now functioning as a Broadway theater while keeping the Studio 54 name. But even as a legitimate theater, you can't escape the ghosts of Andy and 1970s Liza, or thoughts of the mountains of cocaine that people used to do here when visiting the space. It's a strange but somehow fitting stage for the ancient tragedy about a king who ignored prophecy, unknowingly murdered his father, and married his mother.

Bénigne Gagneraux, The Blind Oedipus Commending
His children to the Gods (1784)

I studied Sophocles' 2,500-year-old play in both high school and college. Then there was Freud, whose Oedipus complex was the cornerstone of psychoanalytic theory.

I don’t remember exactly how the teacher explained the play to high school students, but it involved some pretty rough stuff and ultimate taboos. Jocasta ends up hanging herself. Oedipus pokes his eyes out when he finally sees the truth about himself. 

The version now playing at Studio 54 leaves no one unscathed. The ambition, passion, and hubris at the core of Oedipus and Jocasta's marriage are made explicit. The tag line? “Truth is a motherf*cker.”

While Sophocles’ original text emphasizes the theme of predestination, Robert Icke, the British writer and director behind the new version, includes that but also shifts focus to Jocasta as a main character in a contemporary psychological and political thriller. The aptly named Icke, who certainly knows how to give the ick, retains the Greek names but sets the production right in the present moment. 

Oedipus is now a modern-day politician, and the play unfolds in his campaign's war room, with 2 hours remaining before the election results are announced.

The actors portraying Oedipus
and Jocasta taking bows

If you already know Oedipus Rex from school, you might think there wouldn't be much suspense in a new telling of the story – but this was one of the most tense, suspenseful nights I’ve ever spent in the theater. Even knowing how it will all end, there’s a countdown clock on the stage tracking both the minutes until Oedipus the politician’s election, the remaining time in the play, and, by implication, until the catastrophic revelations. By the last few minutes, we’re basket cases.

When it ended, the harsh house lights came on in Studio 54, just like they used to do to signal the end of a night of partying. 

Joe and I looked at each other. “Ick” was written all over our faces.

“Well, that wasn’t a feel-good ending,” he deadpanned.

Nope. It’s been that way for 2,500 years. 

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