1 – 8 March
Drums beat loudly and banners wave as the plague-ridden people of Thebes turn to their king for help. They clutch at their country’s sandy soil, wailing as it slips through their fingers. They suspect that all is lost, but King Oedipus confidently assures them that he will find the root cause of their suffering. He is blindly unaware that he is to blame, and that matters are going to get much, much worse.
Scottish playwright and poet Liz Lochhead has compressed the Ancient Greek tragedies of Oedipus, Jokasta and Antigone into one play, retaining all the key elements of Sophocles’ tales and adding more than a touch of mordant Scottish humour. The generally solemn tone is occasionally leavened with more demotic language, as when the Theban people plead with Oedipus until they are ‘blue in the face.’ The play’s themes are blindness, both literal and metaphorical, and hubristic over-confidence. When powerful men come to believe in their own self-proclaimed genius, disaster follows. That these ancient stories have a contemporary relevance is sadly all too clear.
All the major roles are performed well. In Act One, as Oedipus Isaac Green movingly depicts a well-intentioned king blindly bringing disaster to his family and to the Theban populace. In Act Two, the final bitter confrontation between his successor, the sternly inflexible Kreon (Peter Devlin) and his son Haemon (Tom Brace-Jenkins) is conveyed with considerable force, as is the deadly hostility between Oedipus’ sons Eteokles (Tyler Pringle) and Polyneikes (George Lorimer).
However, to modern eyes, it is surely the fate of the women that is most affecting as they fall prey to the folly of hubristic, inflexible men. As Jokasta, Tamzin Khan vividly portrays a woman forced to confront intolerable truths, discovering she is both wife and mother of Oedipus. Her daughter Antigone (Lili Mohammad) is impressively strong-willed and defiant in her determination to give her much-loved brother Polyneikes a proper burial despite bringing certain punishment down upon herself.
Greek drama can be rather static, but director Max Key has ensured that this production is full of action. The Chorus of harassed Thebans is particularly well choreographed, and given vibrancy by four actors who convey their woes with song and highly expressive movement.
Two of them have cameo roles that stand out as comic highlights. The first is Emily Hurst’s North Country shepherd, bluntly delivering some very unwelcome news to Oedipus; and the second is Kieran Divine’s Glaswegian soldier, hesitating to tell Kreon that his stern instructions regarding Polyneikes’ burial have been disobeyed. His stutterings and stammerings are conveyed both verbally and physically to great comic effect.
Classics scholars might blanch at such an adaptation, but others will find that this production of Thebans, delivered by thirteen talented Bristol Old Vic Theatre School graduating actors, is an engaging introduction to tales that have remained relevant for over 2400 years.
★★★☆☆ Mike Whitton, 3 March 2025
Photography credit: Craig Fuller
