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OEDIPUS ABBEY THEATRE BY SOPHOCLES I N A N E W V E R S I O N BY W AY N E J O R D A N Resource Pack 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.Synopsis 2.Characters 3. Themes and Symbolism 4. Greek Tragedy - Politics - Dramatic Irony - Aristotle and the Aristotelian unities 7. Background - Places - Religion (the Gods, prophesies, fortune telling) - The Sphinx (and Her Riddle) - The Plague 8. Oedipus in the Modern World 9. Greek Tragedy at the Abbey Theatre 5. Features of Greek Tragedy 10.Interviews - The Chorus - Wayne Jordan (Director and Adaptation) - Structure - Tom Lane (Composer, Musical Director and Sound Designer) - Scenery - Characters - Messengers 11. Further Reading 6. Sophocles Oedipus Contents 2 SYNOPSIS Oedipus Synopsis 3 PROLOGUE The play begins with a chorus of citizens of Thebes, a city torn apart by a plague. Oedipus, the king of Thebes, meets the citizens. They describe the plague that is destroying the city, causing sickness, famine and death. Since Oedipus has previously saved the city from a monster called the Sphinx they hope that he can help them again. Oedipus is a good ruler, and explains that he has already sent the queen’s brother, Creon, to ask the Oracle at Delphi what they should do to end the plague. Creon arrives with the Oracle’s message – the plague will only end when the city kills or banishes the murderer of the former king, Laius. Oedipus swears to find the murderer and save his city. Muiris Crowley (Chorus), Hilda Fay (Chorus), Rachel Gleeson (Chorus), Barry John O’Connor (Oedipus) and Ger Kelly (Chorus) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Caoimhe Cassidy (Waiter), Barry John O’Connor (Carthage Kilbride), Peter Gowen (Xavier Cassidy) and Rachel O’Byrne (Caroline Cassidy) in By the Bog of Cats by Marina Carr, directed by Selina Cartmell. Oedipus Contents 4 FIRST SECOND FIRST CHORUS SECOND CHORUS ‘Things Fall Apart’ The Chorus explains the awful effects of the plague, and they pray to their gods Zeus and Apollo for help. THE OATH Oedipus returns and asks anyone with information to come forward without fear of punishment. He also swears that anyone who does not share this information will be banished from the city. Oedipus curses whoever killed Laius, and wishes the same fate on himself, should the murderer be found in his own house. EPISODE - TEIRESIAS The blind prophet Teiresias appears, summoned by Oedipus. He knows the truth but doesn’t want to answer any questions, and Oedipus becomes very angry at him. Oedipus believes that Teiresias is refusing to help because he is in some way involved in the murder. Teiresias responds and tells Oedipus that he, Oedipus, is the poison that is polluting the city. The king and the seer have an intense argument, with each blaming the other. Oedipus decides that Teiresias and Creon are plotting against him, while Teiresias drops hints about Oedipus’ corruption. Oedipus makes a speech about how money corrupts, and then angrily sends the old man away. Oedipus ‘We are all afraid of the light’ The Chorus sings of their confusion at Teiresias’ accusations. They explain their fear and worry, but they are determined to take their king’s side until he is proven guilty. He has saved the city before, and they hope he will again. SECOND EPISODE - CREON Creon appears, upset that Oedipus has accused him. Oedipus then repeats the accusation, and Creon denies it, pointing out that he has no reason to want Oedipus’ crown. He has a nice life, with power and influence, but without the responsibility. As the two men argue, the queen, Jocasta, appears and stops their fight. Jocasta encourages Creon to go home, while she attempts to calm Oedipus’ rage. When Jocasta hears that Teiresias has accused Oedipus, she dismisses it. She doesn’t believe in prophets or prophecies. She explains how a prophecy once predicted that her son would kill her husband, but that never happened. Her first husband, Laius, was murdered before Oedipus came to Thebes, and the one child they had was exposed on a mountain to avoid the prophecy. Since then she has had no time for such nonsense. Oedipus starts to fear that maybe he was Laius’ murderer. He asks Jocasta to repeat all the details she knows of how Laius died – but she reassures him that Laius was murdered by a whole group of men, not just one man on his own. Oedipus still isn’t happy, and insists that the one surviving eye–witness be brought to him to tell his story. Synopsis 5 THIRD THIRD CHORUS ‘Pride gives birth to kings’ The Chorus sing in praise of the gods, and they warn against pride, which is dangerous. THIRD EPISODE - THE STRANGER Nervous now, Jocasta comes to make an offering to Apollo, the god of prophecy, hoping that he will help Oedipus. A Stranger arrives from Corinth, Oedipus’ former home. He proclaims that Oedipus is now the king, since his father has died. Oedipus is relieved, since he had left Corinth to avoid a prophecy that told him he would murder his father and marry his mother. He is still worried about the second half of the prophecy, as long as his mother is still alive. The Stranger interrupts, and tells Oedipus that he has nothing to worry about – the dead king and his queen adopted him when he was a baby. They are no more his parents than the Stranger himself. The Stranger in fact gave the baby to the childless couple after his friend found it on a mountain. Oedipus eagerly awaits the Shepherd, the eye-witness Jocasta mentioned earlier who can give him the information that he needs. Jocasta realises that Oedipus is the baby that she and her husband had abandoned. She is horrified, and exits to the palace. Muiris Crowley (Chorus), Charlotte McCurry (Chorus) and Robert O’Connor (Chorus) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan.. Oedipus Synopsis 6 FOURTH FOURTH CHORUS ‘Cithaeron’ The Chorus sings an ode to Mount Cithaeron, the mountain where Oedipus was abandoned and then found. FOURTH EPISODE - THE SHEPHERD The Shepherd arrives, but also doesn’t want to talk. The Stranger recognises him as the man who gave Oedipus to him as a baby. Only when Oedipus physically threatens the Shepherd does he reveal that he did not abandon Laius and Jocasta’s baby as he was instructed. Instead, he gave the child to the Stranger, as they were friends after spending many summers on the mountain together. Oedipus realises that the prophecy that he was trying to avoid, and the one that Jocasta thought she had escaped, are the same. He has murdered his father and married his mother, and therefore is the cause of the plague in Thebes. He runs into the palace. Barry John O’Connor (Oedipus) and Esosa Ighodaro (Chorus) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Oedipus Synopsis 7 Barry John O’Connor (Oedipus) and Malcolm Adams (Shepherd) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. FIFTH FIFTH CHORUS ‘Life turned upside down’ The Chorus sings an ode sympathising with Oedipus, warning that happiness can never be counted on for long. FIFTH EPISODE - THE MESSENGER, OEDIPUS REVEALED A Messenger comes out from the palace to announce that the queen has hanged herself, and that Oedipus has gouged his own eyes out. Oedipus emerges, blind, and explains that he could no longer look on the light, or on his daughters whom he has defiled. He begs Creon, who will now rule Thebes, to banish him and reminds him that this is what he promised to do as king if the murderer was ever caught. Creon insists that he will consult the Oracle for guidance in how to proceed, and advises Oedipus to go. EPILOGUE / FINAL CHORUS ‘Only the dead are free from pain’ The Chorus sings in sympathy for Oedipus, and, echoing the beginning of the play, they warn that we can consider no man happy until he is dead. Oedipus Synopsis 8 CHARACTERS Oedipus Characters 9 CHARACTERS Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Oedipus Characters 10 Oedipus Oedipus’ name literally means ‘swollen footed’ Oedipus becomes king of Thebes before – and this is a clue to his identity. He was the action of the play begins. He grew up in taken to Mount Cithaeron to be exposed to Corinth, raised by King Polybus and Queen the elements, and had his feet bound together Merope. When an oracle tells him he will kill his – this is how he got the name. Despite his father and marry his mother, he vows never to attempts to avoid his fate, he cannot escape return to Corinth. Instead, he travels to Thebes. the prophecy, and kills his biological father and On his way there, at a place where three roads marries his biological mother. meet, he is nearly run off the road by a royal entourage, and, he angrily kills all but one of Oedipus is intelligent, and appears to be a the men in the group. Oedipus doesn’t know good and respected ruler. He is passionate, that one of the dead men is Laius, the king of and hot–tempered, but ultimately accepts his Thebes. fate and the punishment he himself promised to Laius’ murderer. He continues on his journey to Thebes, and meets the Sphinx, a monster who is terrorising the city. He solves her riddle, frees the city, and is made king of Thebes. As the king, he also marries the queen – Laius’ widow. What he Barry John O’Connor (Oedipus) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. doesn’t know is that she is also his mother, the woman who abandoned him as a baby. Oedipus Characters 11 The Chorus in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Jocasta Creon Jocasta is a powerful, intelligent queen. She is able to stop the fight Creon is Jocasta’s brother and Oedipus’ brother–in–law (and uncle). between Oedipus and her brother Creon, and she ruled the city after Early in the play he proclaims that he has no desire to be king, yet by the her first husband, Laius, was killed. When Oedipus marries her, they are end of the story he becomes ruler of Thebes. (He stays ruler through a equals in power, and they have four children together. She is proud, and number of other Greek tragedies set in Thebes, including Antigone and believes she has escaped the prophecy that told her that her son would Oedipus at Colonus.) marry her after killing her husband. She realises Oedipus’ true identity before anyone else does, and has to retreat into the palace in horror. She kills herself at the end of the play. Oedipus Characters 12 Teiresias Teiresias is a blind seer, or prophet. He is a respected part of society, Ger Kelly (Chorus) and Muiris Crowley (Chorus) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. and both Oedipus and the Chorus say good things about him before he appears. But Oedipus becomes furious with him very quickly, and refuses to believe his words. By the end of the play Oedipus and Teiresias are both blind, and Oedipus has learned that Teiresias could see the truth far earlier than he did. Teiresias appears in nearly all of the Greek tragedies set in Thebes – he was a popular character among ancient Greek playwrights for his ability to see the truth in spite of his literal blindness. The Stranger The Stranger arrives in Thebes as if he has come from another world. He thinks he has arrived bearing good news – that Oedipus’ father has died and so Oedipus is now king. However he then ruins Oedipus’ peace of mind by pointing out that Oedipus was adopted. The Shepherd The Shepherd was an important member of Laius’ court, and was trusted with many jobs – among them the difficult task of abandoning Laius’ son on Mount Cithaeron to avoid the prophecy. Many years later he was also a member of the entourage that met Oedipus at the place where three roads met, and he was the only survivor of the fight. He ran away and has been in hiding ever since, because he knows that Oedipus was the murderer. Oedipus Characters 13 THEMES / SYMBOLISM Oedipus Themes and Symbolism 14 THEMES AND SYMBOLISM SIGHT AND BLINDNESS A major theme in the play is the idea of sight vs. blindness. Oedipus scapegoat – was ‘pharmakos’ (and this kind of a ‘cure’ forms the basis of speaks often about sight and seeing, and insults Teiresias for his inability our English word ‘pharmacy’). Oedipus willingly becomes a scapegoat at to do so. Ironically, despite his literal blindness, Teiresias can see the the end of the play, eager to leave Thebes and take his pollution with him. truth, and he reveals it angrily during his argument with Oedipus. By the end of the play, the tables have turned, and Oedipus has seen the truth and blinded himself. HUBRIS Hubris is a Greek word for arrogance, extreme self–confidence or pride. It was considered a dangerous and self–destructive attribute (the most FATE VS. FREE WILL famous example is the story of Icarus, whose wax wings melted when he Oedipus and Jocasta both believe that they can change their fate. They flew too close to the sun.) In the play, Oedipus begins as a seemingly good have both been given the same prophecy from the Oracle at Delphi, that and effective ruler, but his arrogance and pride escalates over the course Oedipus will murder his father and marry his mother. Jocasta believes she of the play. He is famous as a problem–solver, and insists that he will solve escaped this prophecy by exposing her son on Mount Cithaeron. Oedipus the mystery of Laius’ murder himself. As he gets closer and closer to the believes that by leaving his adopted home in Corinth, he can prevent truth, he becomes angrier and more arrogant, ironically revealing himself to the prophecy from coming true. A key idea in the play is that you cannot be the source of the pollution in Thebes. escape your fate, and neither Oedipus nor Jocasta is an exception. Discussion Questions THE SCAPEGOAT In ancient Greek cities, in times of natural disaster like a plague, a cripple or a beggar would be cast out of the community in the hope that they would take the pollution with them. The word for this outcast – the Oedipus Discuss how Sophocles uses the ideas of sight and blindness in the play. Do you think Oedipus or Jocasta could ever escape their fates? Can you think of other examples of characters who are punished for their pride? Is Oedipus truly a scapegoat? Themes and Symbolism 15 GREEK TRAGEDY Oedipus Greek Tragedy 16 GREEK TRAGEDY POLITICS Greek tragedy is one of the oldest forms of theatre in the world. It developed as a means for a community to come together and ask itself questions, tell stories, and reflect on big ideas. Greek tragedy is special in that it gave a voice to members of society who ordinarily had none. So, for example, women, old people, slaves and foreigners could not vote in Greek society, and yet the choruses of most Greek tragedies are made up of women, old people, slaves or foreigners. Tragedy was an essential part of life in Athens. The plays were performed every year at the festival of Dionysus, the god of theatre. It was a huge honour to participate, and indeed it was the civic duty of the city’s young men to participate in the Chorus. Playwrights would train their choruses all through the winter for the festival that took place in the springtime. Each competing playwright would write four plays – a tetralogy – and they would be performed over the course of a single day. Sophocles was the most successful dramatist ever to compete at the festival, and he is believed to have won first place in the competition at least a dozen times. Oedipus Performing plays for the festival of the god of theatre was a religious act. As well as entertainment and religion, Greek drama often had a political message. Dramatists used the stories of mythology (like Oedipus), set in other places (like Thebes), to ask questions about society. The hero Perseus used a mirror to look at Medusa, because looking at her directly would turn him to stone. In the same way, playwrights in Athens used mythology as a mirror, allowing their audiences to reflect on a variety of issues. Greek tragedy has been used as a political form throughout modern times, since the questions at the heart of these ancient plays are still deeply connected to what it means to be human. DRAMATIC IRONY Dramatic irony is a key part of Oedipus, and one of the reasons it is so effective as a play. It is a literary device, in which the audience knows more than the characters on stage. The audience of Oedipus already knows that he is the murderer he seeks, and that he has killed his father and married his mother. What makes the play so intense is the way that Sophocles reveals this information to the people in the story. Jocasta is the first to see what has happened, and we slowly watch everyone else come to terms with the horrific situation. Greek Tragedy 17 ARISTOTLE Poetics The philosopher Aristotle wrote an important book about Greek tragedy, called Poetics. It is the first ever academic book on theatre, and he uses it to discuss drama as he knew it. Although he was writing more than a half century after the last plays of Sophocles and Euripides, he discusses everything that went into the construction of a good play. The example Aristotle uses throughout the Poetics is Sophocles’ Oedipus – which he holds up as the greatest example of a play ever written. Oedipus Aristotle’s Unities Aristotle explains that there are three Unities central to any good play – unity of time, unity of place and unity of action. This basically means that, like in Oedipus, the story should happen on the same day, in the same place, and should tell one specific story. The action of Oedipus all takes place in front of the palace in Thebes, and takes place over the course of a single day. There are no sub–plots, and no diversions from the story. Discussion Questions Discuss the use of Dramatic Irony in Oedipus. How does this build tension in the play? How do Aristotle’s Unities make for an effective story? What are the major questions asked in Oedipus? Greek Tragedy 18 FEATURES OF A GREEK TRAGEDY Oedipus Oedipus Features of a Greek Tragedy 19 FEATURES OF A GREEK TRAGEDY There are several unique features of Greek tragedy as a dramatic form. STRUCTURE Tragedy developed out of formal dances performed by a large group. Every Greek tragedy is arranged as a series of odes (songs sung by It is rumoured that Thespis was the first actor to step out of the chorus the chorus) and episodes (conversations between the characters and and start a dialogue, which is why actors are, to this day, referred to as the chorus). The chorus’ first ode is called the Parodos, and their last is Thespians. called the Exodos. Different portions of the play would have been written in different poetic metres, all of which had different characters and THE CHORUS The Chorus is at the centre of every Greek tragedy. Indeed, many of moods. The poetry of ancient Greek drama was very intricate and rich, both in language and rhythm. the surviving plays are named for their choruses (The Bacchae, The Persians, The Trojan Women). There is no Greek tragedy that does not SCENERY have a chorus – it would have been impossible to present a play without Greek plays were written to be performed in the Theatre of Dionysus, on one. The chorus most often begins and ends the play, describing the the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. The theatre had a circular playing situation, commenting on the action throughout, and interacting with the space called the Orchestra, and a raised area behind it called the Skene characters in the drama. (from which we get our modern word ‘scene’). The Chorus stayed in the Orchestra, and then the characters would move between the Skene and the Orchestra during the play. In Oedipus, the Skene represented the royal palace in Thebes. Oedipus Features of a Greek Tragedy 20 CHARACTERS MESSENGERS The main character in a Greek tragedy is called the protagonist, which In order to observe Aristotle’s unities, Greek playwrights had to describe means “the first actor”. In Sophocles’ time there would have been three many events and information that happened offstage. Murders and actors – the first, second and third actors, and each would have had violence were very seldom depicted onstage, and so instead the different roles to play. The protagonist in this play is Oedipus, who is on messenger speech developed. In every play, at least one messenger stage for nearly all of the play, and then the other roles would have been appears with news from offstage. Oedipus is unusual in that it has divided between the other two actors. three messengers – the Stranger from Corinth, the Shepherd and the Messenger, who all appear from different places to share information. Perhaps it is Sophocles’ idea to have three messengers in the play to DEBATE The idea of debate is central to almost all the plays that have survived from ancient Greece. The ‘agon’ meant ‘contest’, ‘struggle’ or ‘debate’ – and has the same root as the word ‘protagonist’. It refers to the argument of opposing ideas – and more generally to the conflict at the heart of any play. In Oedipus, there are debates and arguments throughout the play – between Oedipus and almost every other character. The most famous is the one between Oedipus and Teiresias, one of the best debates in all of Greek tragedy. Oedipus remind us of ‘the place where three roads meet’. Messenger speeches were considered a particular speciality for certain performers in Athens, and they are very often a great acting opportunity. Discussion Questions Can you think of examples of other stories (plays, films, musicals) that make use of the various elements of Greek tragedy – The Chorus? The Messenger? Debate? Why is the Messenger so important in Greek tragedy? How does Greek tragedy reflect the politics of its time? Features of a Greek Tragedy 21 SOPHOCLES Oedipus Sophocles 22 SOPHOCLES Sophocles was born in approximately 496BC and died at the age of 90. He is one of the three great writers of Ancient Greek tragedy, and was said to have written over 120 plays. His career began after Aeschylus, and he wrote at more or less the same time as Euripides. He won more prizes than any of the playwrights who competed at the major drama festival of Athens, the City Dionysia. Sophocles’ major contribution to Greek tragedy as an art form was the introduction of a third actor. Before Sophocles, there were only ever two actors and a chorus on stage. His innovation allowed for more psychological development of the characters in his plays. Aristotle also credits Sophocles with the invention of scenography (or set design). Hedda Gabler Sophocles’ most famous plays are called ‘The Theban Plays’ – all three are set in Thebes, and feature Oedipus and his family. They are Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. Although the three plays are about the same characters, they were all written in different years, and each was originally presented in a different competition. Only seven of Sophocles’ plays have survived intact – although we have titles and fragments for over a hundred others. The seven full plays that have survived are Ajax, Electra, Philoctetes, The Women of Trachis, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus and perhaps the most famous, Oedipus the King. Characters 23 BACKGROUND Oedipus Background 24 PLACES THEBES Thebes was a city in Boeotia, in central Greece. It is important as a location in Greek tragedy – it was the birthplace of Dionysus, the god of theatre. His story is told in one of the very last tragedies ever written, The Bacchae. Thebes is also the location for all the plays that deal with the story of Oedipus – including Sophocles’ three Theban plays. Unlike Athens, which was a democracy, Thebes was a monarchy. MOUNT CITHAERON Just as Shakespeare set some of his plays in Italy to represent a dramatic, foreign land that he could use to comment on contemporary England, so the ancient Greeks dramatised Thebes as a means of commenting on DELPHI contemporary Athens. In Athens it was frowned upon to write tragedies about contemporary events, ever since the playwright Phrynichus wrote The Sack of Miletus. The play was about a real event, and it moved the audience to tears, and the playwright was fined for it. So, dramatists had to find subtler ways of commenting on contemporary life. CORINTH Oedipus grew up in Corinth, another monarchy, far away from Thebes. The Shepherd hoped that he might never find his way back to fulfil the prophesy. Mount Cithaeron is a long mountain range that forms a physical boundary between Boeotia and Attica. It features very often in mythology and literature – numerous episodes from the stories of Greek tragedies take place there. The most famous is the story of Oedipus, who was to be abandoned and left to die there until the Shepherd took pity on him. Delphi was the home of one of the most important temples in the Ancient Greek world, the temple of Apollo. Within this temple was the Oracle, where pilgrims could come and ask the god to tell them their fate. The god spoke through his priestess, the sibyl, who would chant enigmatic responses to the pilgrims’ requests. Delphi was reputed to be the very centre of the world. A stone beside the temple marked the exact location of ‘the navel of the earth’. The Oracle at Delphi was a major cultural site throughout ancient times, until the Roman Emperor Julian came to visit in the 5th century AD, and was told that the old gods were dead. Discussion Questions Why is Oedipus exiled to Cithaeron at the end of the play? THE PLACE WHERE THREE ROADS MEET Sophocles made up this detail of Oedipus’ story – that it was at a junction of three roads where he encountered Laius and his men. Sophocles mentions the place very frequently – perhaps this symbolises past, present and future? Oedipus Discuss the significance of ‘the place where three roads meet’. What might this be a metaphor for? How is Thebes different from Athens? Background 25 RELIGION Thebes is a religious society. The Chorus of citizens prays often, and several gods are mentioned. They respect and believe the words of the Oracle at Delphi, and the blind soothsayer Teiresias also has a place in society. hinted that he was adopted.) Oedipus was so distressed by the Oracle’s proclamation, that he would kill his father and marry his mother, that he vowed never to return to his home in Corinth. Of course, by trying to avoid this fate Oedipus unwittingly fulfils his awful destiny. THE GODS Several gods are mentioned in the play. The most frequently mentioned is Apollo, who is the god of light, healing and prophesy. The Chorus also prays to Zeus, King of the Gods. The play was written at a time when people were starting to question the existence of the gods – so Jocasta’s mockery of the gods and their prophecies would have been quite shocking to a Greek audience. FORTUNE TELLING As well as the Oracle at Delphi, there were numerous other ways the ancient Greeks attempted to see the future. These included observing the flight patterns of birds, the entrails of sacrificed animals, and even the manner in which cats jumped. People were deeply concerned with knowing about their lives and their futures – and there was good money to be made from the practice, as Oedipus angrily points out in his attack against Teiresias. PROPHESIES The prophesies of the Oracle at Delphi are central to Oedipus’ story. Before he was born, Oedipus’ biological parents Laius and Jocasta consulted the Oracle to hear what life might have in store for their son. They were so scared of the Oracle’s response that they chose to abandon their baby on a mountainside. Oedipus was rescued, but he too consulted the Oracle as a young man (after a drunk at a party Discussion Questions Discuss how prophesies and religion figure throughout the play. Is Oedipus responsible for his own fate? Oedipus Does everyone in the play believe in the Gods? How does the Chorus react to the religious elements of the play? Background 26 THE SPHINX THE SPHINX Although the most famous sphinx is probably the kindly–looking monument near the pyramids in Egypt, the Sphinx in ancient Greece was far more frightening. She was said to have the head of a woman, the body of lioness, the wings of an eagle and a snake for a tail. Sent by Hera, Queen of the Gods, to punish the city of Thebes, she guarded one of the city’s seven gates and ate everyone who could not solve her riddle. When Oedipus arrived, he solved it, and the Sphinx threw herself off a mountain. THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX Question: What has four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? Answer: Man – he crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on his own two feet as an adult, and in the evening of his life uses a staff to walk. THE PLAGUE There is reason to believe that Sophocles wrote Oedipus soon after the plague that raged in Athens during the Peloponnesian War. His description of the plague and its symptoms are very similar to those described by the historian Thucydides. Sophocles could have been making a very strong political point. By presenting a chorus of citizens who have survived the plague thus far but are looking to their leader for a solution, he would have tapped into a feeling that was very prevalent in the city at the time. In the original Greek, the Chorus even makes one small reference to the god of War, Ares, being responsible for the plague. Interestingly, once the tension has started to build and we are invested in the lives of its characters, all mention of the plague disappears. Discussion Questions Does Thebes have any hope of survival after the play? It has been ravaged by the Sphinx, and the plague, and now this horror in the royal household. What do you think can happen now? Does Creon seem like a good new ruler? Discuss how Sophocles might be using Thebes’ plague to reflect Athens’ situation. Can you think of other plays or stories that use one time period to discuss another? Oedipus Background 27 OEDIPUS IN THE MODERN WORLD Oedipus Oedipus in the Modern World 28 OEDIPUS IN THE MODERN WORLD The very first modern attempt to stage a Greek tragedy was at the Since then, according to the Archive of Performances of Greek and Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1585. The theatre was designed by Roman Drama in Oxford, there have been well over 900 productions of the famous architect Palladio, and it opened with a production of Oedipus the King around the world, making it one of the most performed Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Amazingly, the set design still survives. of all the surviving ancient Greek tragedies. Barry John O’Connor (Oedipus), Fiona Bell (Jocasta) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Oedipus Oedipus in the Modern World 29 Fiona Bell (Jocasta) in Oedipus by Sophocles in a new version by Wayne Jordan. Nowadays, Oedipus’ name is mostly known to Freud’s complex was humorously lampooned in people because of the psychologist Sigmund Tom Lehrer’s 1959 song “Oedipus Rex” : Freud. The play was presented with great success in Paris and Vienna in the 1880s and There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex 1890s. After Freud saw the play, he identified You may have heard about his odd complex the Oedipus Complex in his 1899 book His name appears in Freud’s index The Interpretation of Dreams. The Oedipus ‘cause he loved his mother... Complex is among Freud’s most renowned and controversial theories. It proposes that part of Discussion Questions a man’s development is overcoming a desire to Had you ever heard of Oedipus before seeing this kill his father and have sexual relations with his play? What did you know? mother. Freud’s student Carl Jung proposed Do the Oedipus and Electra Complexes remind a female equivalent, the Electra Complex, you of any other characters from literature? which reversed the genders, based on another How does the story of Oedipus resonate in the Sophocles play. One of the most famous Irish contemporary world? responses to Freud’s theories is the short story My Oedipus Complex by Frank O’Connor – himself a former artistic director of the Abbey Theatre. Oedipus Oedipus in the Modern World 30 GREEK TRAGEDY AT THE ABBEY THEATRE Oedipus Greek Tragedy at the Abbey Theatre 31 GREEK TRAGEDY AT THE ABBEY THEATRE At the Abbey Theatre, several of Ireland’s most influential writers and dramatists have explored ancient Greek plays in contemporary translations. The first to do so was W.B. Yeats. His versions of the two great Oedipus plays, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, were presented at the Abbey Theatre in the late 1920s. It was almost half a century before another production of Greek tragedy was performed, when in 1973 the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis presented Yeats’ translation of Oedipus the King. 1926 Oedipus the King (Sophocles, in a version by W.B. Yeats) 1927 Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles, in a version by W.B. Yeats) 1973 Oedipus the King (Sophocles, in a version by W.B. Yeats) 1977 Living Quarters (loosely based on Euripides’ Hippolytus, by Brian Friel) 1986 Antigone (Sophocles, translated by Brendan Kennelly) 1993 The Trojan Women (Euripides, translated by Brendan Kennelly) 1998 By the Bog of Cats (loosely based on Euripides’ Medea, by Marina Carr) 2000 Medea (Euripides, translated by Kenneth McLeish) 2001 Iphigenia at Aulis (Euripides, translated by Don Taylor) 2002 Ariel (loosely based on Aeschylus’ The Oresteia, by Marina Carr) 2004 The Burial at Thebes (Sophocles’ Antigone, translated by Seamus Heaney) 2006 The Bacchae of Baghdad (Euripides, translated by Conall Morrison) 2008 The Burial at Thebes (Sophocles’ Antigone, translated by Seamus Heaney) 2015 By the Bog of Cats (loosely based on Euripides’ Medea, by Marina Carr) 2015 Oedipus (Sophocles, in a new version by Wayne Jordan) Oedipus Greek Tragedy at the Abbey Theatre 32 INTERVIEWS Oedipus Interviews 33 INTERVIEW WITH WAYNE JORDAN DIRECTOR AND ADAPTATION Why Oedipus at the Abbey? I wanted to do the Yeats Oedipus here at the Abbey Theatre as a development on my work, both with the Yeats canon, which they were finding difficult to programme, and also because I really wanted to do a Greek play, and because Oedipus felt like a really interesting national play. I was really interested in a chorus of people who desperately want to change but really don’t want to change themselves. Which felt very much like Ireland. I was really interested in Yeats’ project of trying to create a linguistically simple and direct performance text. He talks a lot in interviews about how he would often go onto the stage and speak his lines to make sure there was nothing excessive. He and Lady Gregory went away and tried to pare away anything that couldn’t be understood on the Blasket Islands. So, for those kind of reasons I had been looking at the Yeats version, and a number of years ago I had tried to make that project work here but it didn’t. And I have been pushing for it ever since. I am attracted to the deep mysteries of it, to the kind of desperate need for change, the extraordinarily primal themes of scapegoating, power, leadership, crowds, how to live in a city, how to have someone rule it, and deep, deep secrets lying underneath the surface. In this case, incestuous and patricidal secrets. And of course we live in a country that is bound to recognise that sexual sins have been covered up for a generation. I think that the real mystery is why nobody ever did anything about Laius, and I Oedipus think Yeats was tapping into that as well in his version, in terms of it being a Civil War play. But Yeats’ play, which I still love dearly (and we’re doing a reading of it during Dublin Theatre Festival) I don’t think it seems very simple now, to a contemporary ear. So you’ve created your own version? Having worked with a number of different translations in various classes and projects I felt that since I had the opportunity to do one of my own, I should do one of my own. I’ve done a number of translations before, and written a number of plays of my own. It also was an interesting project for me because the play isn’t particularly charming, and that’s something I’ve made my bread and butter on! Certainly the stuff that I’ve written has been about comedy. So it was interesting for me to pull back and be very spare. On the page, this translation is extremely spare. Yes. It is. But it flows well though – and it can sometimes feel poetic but it is very spare. I wanted to really really take it to the Nth degree of what Yeats was doing with it. It’s an interpretation of Sophocles as well. Interviews 34 Did you work from a literal translation? I worked from Michael Lloyd’s translation. And I also used Ruby Blondell’s literal translation, and the most recent Loeb version. Have you changed the structure of the play at all? I’ve cut quite a bit at the end, and I’ve placed an invocation at the beginning that isn’t in the play, and moved some small things around in some of the choruses, but for the most part no, it all goes in the order of Sophocles’ play. It has been more a kind of paring down than any kind of restructuring. A honing. In terms of our reinterpretation I wanted the piece to feel very much ‘now’, and very much ‘then’ at the same time, and also I was really trying to achieve a very simple, very muscular language. Any other influences at work while you prepared it? I had been reading a lot of Brecht poems, and a lot of Paul Celan, and Constantine Cavafy. There were a number of poets I was looking at, particularly Cavafy’s poem The City, which is a really big influence on the piece. And Yeats, who also used very simple language. Yeats’ poem The Second Coming – there are a lot of echoes of it throughout the translation. And I have quoted Yeats – there are three quotes lifted and repeated from Yeats’ original version. I’ve also read a novel called Things Fall Apart. I was wondering if you had read it recently because the phrase appears repeatedly in the translation! Oedipus It appears so much in our play. There’s a Nigerian girl in the chorus, and she noticed too. She was talking about how prevalent it is as a text in Nigeria. I had always known of it because it was one of those books that English students had to read in university. It’s a really interesting story about a culture, a character not dissimilar to Oedipus, and a culture that leaves twins out, exposed, and then when the protagonist accidentally kills a man he has to leave for seven years. It’s a culture that has very similar beliefs to the belief system of this play. And in Things Fall Apart, the characters seem to half–understand that things don’t have to be this way, and yet they remain inside it. And I think that the theatre is all about making the invisible visible. So what is it that we aren’t seeing about ourselves nowadays, that in the future they’ll look back and go ‘how did they not see that?’ How can we bring that forward in a way that is allegorical, mythological – that this man, and all of these people managed to avoid what was blatantly in front of them. Or how they all managed to have the pieces of information available but never introduced them to each other until they absolutely had to. Possibly far too late – certainly far too late for Oedipus. And you have to ask, are we living fully integrated, examined lives. I’m very interested in it as a kind of mystery play – and I don’t mean that like a thriller, although it is a thriller. You mean like the religious Mysteries? Or rather the atheistic mysteries. Or agnostic mysteries. I feel like it’s a play that’s cracking this open. Some people think of it as a deeply religious play – which is an utterly authentic reading. But I think of it as a play that’s really cracking open at a time when ideas about the gods maybe not existing were certainly there. Interviews 35 Indeed that’s why Socrates was put to death – for promoting atheism. So they are not the ‘standard’ bunch of old men observing the action? Yes, absolutely – and whether Socrates thought that or not, it was in the air and people were afraid of it. Because it had been a very prosperous place for a long time, and they had become ultra conservative. But I think that there’s an edge of understanding in the play, that maybe the gods aren’t there. And what would that even mean? Well no, they are not old men. They are a group of women and men. They are supposed to be more recognisable as a group of modern citizens rather than Athenian citizens. It’s an interesting thing, because I think in the original play Sophocles is writing something that is supposed to mean the same thing in the now of when he was writing, in certain moments, and at other times he was writing the past, or an alleged time, and he flits between that in a way that’s challenging the democratic ways in which Athens had been existing over the time he had been writing and living. It’s very exciting on the stage when Jocasta thinks she is safe and that the prophecies are worthless. “We are all soldiers of fortune, staring into the void. We do the best we can. Prophecy means nothing to me, Oracles and gods, where are you now?” The Chorus desperately need the deaths of all of their families, animals and the land around them to mean something. Because if it doesn’t mean something, what’s the point in anything? Well, the fact that Athens had been going through this with Pericles. And of course the language of - particularly - the first speech is seemingly very redolent of Pericles’ funeral speech. What about the music? What does a city mean? I think so much of it is about staying together. In Athens, something like a third of the population died not long before this play, from a plague, when they went inside the city walls. Part of the reason why so many cities fell apart was because they all got diseases - that didn’t ordinarily happen in hunter-gathering societies - when they moved in together. So there’s something about the question of is a city worth dying for? And I guess, to an extent, it becomes about a nation worth dying for. Certainly the idea that we are looking to our leaders, and they either need to be shining heroes or they need to be scapegoats, rather than us asking what responsibility are we going to take. There’s a judgement on the Chorus in my production as much as there is on anyone else – why aren’t they doing anything, why are they deciding to do this. Oedipus I wanted to work with Tom again after our collaboration on Twelfth Night. I had such a good time with him. And I thought that he could really give voice to this. It took us a long time to figure out how to make the music, how to make the right sound for it. It was really only in about May that we got our groove. And also for me to write words, in a language that was rhythmic enough and simple enough that he could write and also did what the choruses needed to do. Because they’re not songs. So I worked with Tom and I thought he could do the sound of it. I guess we were interested in all the things that the music and the sound could bring to it, like fugues and counterpoint and harmony, the different ways that voices could be together and be apart. There are also religious connotations to the look of Interviews 36 the piece and I get the sense that it’s kind of a secular mass – my production is a story about gods that no longer exist. And it’s calling upon the heavens in a certain way. We wanted to find a music that had tension in it, a discussion, even when people were singing the same words homophonically. I wanted it to do something extraordinary. I really felt that the play needed to be about the city of Thebes. So that it wasn’t about fetishising the fact that he slept with his mother – which is almost incidental. Actually it’s about how a city deals with, and begs their leader to deal with the situation that they’re in. And how they let that unfold, midwifing it but not doing it. These are the people who are still alive and have survived the plague thus far. Their friends have all died. And their parents. The plague is an interesting thing. It’s so metaphorical, and it disappears about halfway through – literally as soon as it becomes apparent who Oedipus is they never mention it again. Nor do they at the end of the play. Although I guess it goes off with him. There’s a line in Lecoq’s book The Moving Body wherein he says that the Chorus is the street, raised to the level of the mask. And I guess it’s the thing that we do that lifts it beyond it just being an Ibsen play. But I think that’s important, an important energy to the thing, and we use the form to arrest the audience, and make them think about who and how we are as people. We are showing them something that is musical and theatrical rather than just psychological. How do you go about putting this huge, archetypal, mythological characters into muscular, human life? We are following the play, really. I feel like the exercise is about listening. Listening to what it might have been. Listening to what it is now, and what it Oedipus could be. Listening to what they say, how they listen to each other. In lots of ways so little of what is happening to them is expressed in the play by them. We don’t get any gory details. They don’t often talk about their feelings. They are actually just discovering it. It is quite easy to imagine discovering who you are. Or to try and hide what you felt or revealed. And so in that way you can play. There is a demand in it that the characters sometimes have to play extraordinary levels of active ignorance or denial. However, the more we’ve talked about it, the more believable we have found it to be that people would allow an elephant to live in the room that much. Like, we’re all walking around and nobody is doing anything – in the future, are they not just going to ask why Ireland didn’t just rise up and scream about all the things that were happening? As they were completely and utterly being made a slave, as they were being turned into a corporate class and a slave class. So, that has been interesting and has real demands. So often it seems like he should know. But then you have to put yourself inside it. Fintan O’Toole talks a lot about the idea that the essential quality of being Irish is being able to have two completely opposing ideas in your head at the same time and never introduce them to each other. Or two bits of information. When the Ryan Report came out, so many people asked how this could have been happening, but as Karen (Ardiff, one of the Chorus members) said, we were all in the movies! And yet we managed as a nation not to realise that we were living in a fascist Catholic state. It feels enormously timely, the more you unpack. Interviews 37 Yes. The way in which the leadership of the place works in the play seems like it’s not following the pattern of how Athens was running at the time. Or really any of the major city states. It seems to have a triumvirate – Jocasta, Oedipus and Creon are equal, and yet Oedipus is the King. He also doesn’t inherit the title, he’s given the kingship, and he’s also given the Queen. And she seems to be incredibly powerful, for a woman in Ancient Greece. Well there’s the whole thing of Thebes being the anti–Athens. Athens was a proud democracy, while Thebes had a monarchy. There’s a tyrant, and it is the dramatic other – Do you think he’s a hero? He’s a hero when the play starts. They say it all the time. But by the end… No. But by the end of Oedipus at Colonus he is a hero again. But no, I think he’s a scapegoat. And I don’t mean in the way that we understand it now, I think he takes… well, so it’s heroic. An old kind of heroic. He takes on who he is, and the fact that he is the pollution in the city, and tries to leave. Your stage direction is very interesting, like Beckett almost, in that he stays onstage at the end. And yet it isn’t that, though. Of course. It’s totally about Athens. They seem to be talking about how things should happen. How Oedipus is occasionally hubristic, or over–kingly, or proud, but then he seems to retract, and remember reason, and discussion. So it seems to be really about how to live. And I think the play is at the edge of understanding that a scapegoating culture is not… that it’s not their fault. It’s not the victim’s fault they are attacked. We understand now that it’s not Oedipus’ fault. But they wouldn’t understand that at the time. They believed that there was fate, and curses, and there was an uncleanliness around certain things, and… If you try to escape your fate. …and trying to escape your fate. I think that Sophocles is at the edge of understanding that maybe it’s not Oedipus’ fault. Oedipus I’m not sure whether or not I’ll do that, but it’s a real possibility. I’m not sure who should be on the stage at the end. Him on his own? The chorus on their own? Or Creon on his own? Because the meaning of the play is so wound up in that moment. So we’ll see. There’s something about victims taking on the language of their victimhood that I’m interested in, and especially considering what’s just happened to Greece, that’s hanging in the air. Let’s talk about the visual elements of the production – what about the costumes? Costumes are plain clothes. Modern, contemporary clothes. In lots of ways they imitate or echo the clothes that the people in the play wear in their own lives. There is a wooden crown, a glass of water, a wooden mask and a wooden bowl. They are all the props we have. The idea is that we recognise them as being like us. Citizens. When Oedipus says ‘Citizens’ – and they’re all sitting there, we’re like ‘we’re citizens – they’re citizens.’ Interviews 38 Can you talk about the design and the visual elements of the production? Well they’re so open, these plays, like man versus the universe. There are 92 chairs on the stage. It’s a huge big circle of chairs. I’d really like for people to think ‘Oh? Is this what Oedipus is? I had no idea.” I even hope his youth is interesting. Echoes of people who are no longer with us? Casting somebody as young as Barry is a great thing. Yes, absolutely. People who are no longer here. And also a Quaker meeting house, the low church. I’ve been inspired by early low church music, about how closeness to god was inspired by talking, just talking, talking through each other in a community, so that was what we were really looking at. And then the people not being there, and I guess in another way the idea of a council chamber, or people meeting in a circle with a problem, or even gravestones, in another way. To be honest, Pina Bausch’s production Cafe Mueller is definitely hanging around here, because obviously there are two blind people [in the story of Oedipus] and they have to walk in a room full of chairs, and the chairs are in their way. We also thought a lot about how orchestras are put together, and how musicians play, and I saw this beautiful moment when I visited Versailles. This group of about 25 German people just put their bags down somewhere on the long gravel drive and they sang, in seven parts, a beautiful chorale – for themselves, although people stood around – and then they picked up their bags and got on their bus. They were obviously some sort of choir tour. And that has played in my mind as well. There was something about listening – how people listen to each other. That’s what these plays are. An opportunity to listen. It’s relatively unusual, isn’t it. Relatively, yes. I have a great Jocasta. And I’ve been enjoying how great the parts of the Stranger and the Shepherd really are. My Stranger is very funny. He arrives and thinks he’s in a Moliere play. Nobody told him it was a tragedy. And there’s a kind of Brokeback Mountain shared experience of having struggled through the winters on the mountain between the two of them. And I cast the Messenger as a woman. Everyone else had to be a man. I really felt like there had to be someone who was a bit like a father onstage. And I think the story is better if those two men are men, the two men who handled the baby are men. So that there’s no mother around. So that the mother that they go looking for is Jocasta. And so the Messenger felt like an interesting choice. And she’s in the chorus as well – so she follows Jocasta offstage when she leaves, and then comes back to relate what has happened. It just felt good to have a woman talk, since the men have all been talking for so long. Yes, it was interesting. Because normally I have very visual responses to things. Whatever about my productions, my research is really visual. But for this it was all about reading poetry, listening to music, listening, listening. Thinking about listening. And trying to get rid of visual things. Oedipus Interviews 39 Is there anything that you would love an audience member to know before it starts? No. Hopefully it plays itself out. Invariably, the nature of what I’ve made, the production I’ve made around the text, I think it will feel like, as in so many of the plays I really like by Ibsen or Chekhov, it’ll feel like you’re looking into somebody’s world, rather than it being opened up and explained to you. What has surprised you in this process? I am surprised all the time by it. It’s constantly not what I think it is. There’s the saying that a great play is like a river – every time you step in it, it’s different. It’s very hard in this play to know who knows what at any given moment. It moves so quickly. The structure of what is being revealed is constantly surprising. All nineteen people on the stage can be at a different place in the plot at any one point. And finding out how much the play is about the city. Much more than about sex. It’s actually a play about identity in a very different way. It’s not about the sexual complex. The need to know who you are. The idea that you never knew who you were. What do you hope an audience will get from this production? I’ve thought about that a lot actually. In some ways it’s really simple, what we’ve done. Although the music is complex. But I think the music isn’t resolved – things fall apart, the centre cannot hold – so I’m hoping that meaning is thrown back at the audience almost like minimal art, so you watch it and you ask ‘who am Oedipus I in relation to this two and half thousand year old thing that I just listened to?’ And that they’re opened up. That they’ll be listening more carefully to who they are and what’s being said afterwards. INTERVIEW WITH TOM LANE COMPOSER, MUSICAL DIRECTOR AND SOUND DESIGNER How did you get started on this project, to create music for the production? We started when Wayne told me that he’d like to do a version of Oedipus, where the chorus sing – he said – in six parts. We began with reading workshops, and read through different versions of the script. Then we did singing workshops in December 2014, and I composed some music for these workshops – none of the text had been written then so we used different translations. We tried it out, bits of various choruses and the Messenger speech, just to see what would happen. There was a lot of discussion about the setting of the text and the difference between choral music where there are often very sustained words and popular music, where it’s very syllabic, more kinda on the syllable. So that was a good experience, to try that. And to work and see how far we could go with actors – what they could sing, what kind of harmonies they could cope with – and the answer is that they can do anything! earnest. I would write it, take it to Wayne, we’d listen through, he’d give notes, and I would more often than not incorporate them. And we went through the whole thing. So you composed it in order? Yes. The fourth chorus was the portion that survived from the workshop, so it was already there, but other than that yes, it developed in the order of the play. The fifth chorus was definitely the last one we did. The setting of the words was very important, because it’s a play, and they are talking about things that are happening in the play. So you need to hear the words. The words versus music debate, which has been raging for centuries. Have you used different techniques to portray the different voices in the Chorus and how they communicate? How much of that workshop has made it into the show? We didn’t actually record anything from that workshop, but we went away, and then spent a week at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and Wayne wrote the text while I wrote the music and we’d meet up and play bits to each other – and one piece from that session survived in the score. I didn’t start writing the actual final score until I had the text, but I had some ideas. But then Wayne gave me the choruses, the general sections, discussing what it was all about and then I started writing in Oedipus That’s a big question – in the text there are lots of differences. Sometimes the Chorus is saying “I…” and then sometimes they’re saying “we…” Sometimes they’re talking in a more abstract sense. So we had to find ways of representing all of that. There are about three major things we do. There’s a solo voice with accompaniment – where one voice sings against the accompaniment of the other voices. So it’s very clear, one person saying something. But it’s not necessarily that one person’s opinion. But then there’s homophony, which is two or four Interviews 41 parts, which could be two soloists, or four parts all singing the same rhythm. Then there’s unison, where they’re singing the same rhythm and the same notes. But then there’s polyphony, where you have more than one musical line happening at the same time. With different rhythms and different notes or pitches. And that is the one that represents the more disparate ideas, however they are usually singing the same words, just at different times. They’re all thinking the same thought, but individually. So it’s like a discussion among themselves? Yes, a discussion, but they’re not really disagreeing. But that’s because you want to hear the words. If they were all doing completely different sentences it would be very hard to follow. And if you do choose to do that, that’s when repetition comes in, because if you have a piece of text in different parts, if you repeat it we are more likely to hear those words, on the first listening. So those are the three general things. That’s basically the structure of the piece – it goes from segments that are very homophonic, things that are solo with accompaniment, and things that are polyphonic. Music basically runs on rhythm. So that’s actually a good reason for polyphony, as well as all the other things to talk about. What about dissonance? It is a tragedy, so there’s also a lot of dissonance happening. For me it’s a way of sustaining energy, and tension. But the harmony is so important – very broadly you can call it mood. You have to find the right line. There are very few major chords because as a piece, it’s not that simple! Oedipus And these are chords that are specifically used because they create tension. Yes. They are. T minor 9th chords – so like, A minor with a B natural in it. It’s like a signature thing. But then I also used that in Twelfth Night, for ‘Come Away Death’ – it’s a kind of interesting, harmonically ambiguous chord. Which can lead on to other things. There is, I hope, a logical harmonic language in the piece. Most pieces are in a particular key, and then they end in another key. Some with a more chromatic element. I also had to make everything in the right register to suit the various voices. Do you have a very wide range of vocal capacities? We do. It would be a smaller range in the sopranos and tenors than might be available in an opera chorus. This is because of the musical theatre background of our voices, which tends to be lower. And for the basses I haven’t gone too low because it’s choral music and we want to make sure the voices can be heard. Is there any portion for the chorus that is spoken, or is it totally sung through? Well, most of the chorus’ lines are spoken. All of their interactions with the other characters. We follow the original Greek in the fact that there are some sections which are written in a metre that suggests that they were sung – and those are the sections that we are singing. They generally speak individually rather than chorally. But there are some bits when they speak together. Interviews 42 And there are no musical instruments involved? Does this feel like a very new episode for you in your work as a composer? No. There is sound design, and some tones. Which is like a band – an invisible band. This will respond to the choir, rather than them responding to the music. So we have done a lot of work on counting, and rhythm, which all singers should do! So in this, everyone is the drummer, supplying the beat and the rhythm, and they have to rely on themselves and each other. In much choral music there is usually a rhythm, and a band, and a conductor, but we have none of those things. Not necessarily. It’s a bit more accessible than other things I’ve written. There are nods to more traditional harmony and things. But then there’s very odd things going on as well. So you have removed many of the usual safety nets. Yes. And that’s what so exciting about what this chorus is doing. We’ve removed the set, we’ve removed lots of the accoutrements. It’s a very stripped back production, and it’s the same with the music. If we had a full orchestra, it would feel out of place. Have there been any other composers’ work that has been inspirational to you as you approach this piece? Well, it’s supposed to be something of a blend of things. You can’t help but be influenced by lots of sacred music, like Bach, Tallis, Palestrina, and from all through history. But with any sacred choral music, imitation just goes so closely with vocal writing. Because of the way it evolved, people singing one line against another line. So that’s always an influence. There’s also contemporary classical music, music that explores a more extended tonality and rhythmic, harmonic language, and I’ve written pieces like that, for instance Flatpack, the opera that I wrote. That would influence a lot of the harmonic writing, but not exclusively, because lots of the harmonic writing is jazz–influenced, like when you’re adding ninths, and fourths, and sevenths, it gets a bit jazz–like. Oedipus Wayne mentioned when we spoke that he sees this to an extent as a secular mass. Has that been a part of your conversations as you develop the piece? You mentioned a little bit about religious music and how that works. Ninety five percent of choral music is written for religious ceremonies. In our culture anyway. And for the acoustics of a church. And choirs were designed for the acoustics. It all went hand–in–hand. It’s all about singing the word, it has to be the specific text, and you have to hear the text. So when you take a text and you set it for a choir, and then you’re using polyphony, you can’t help but reference those kinds of things. The only unfortunate thing is that for some people perhaps it will trigger the association with a mass, or a mass setting, or a hymn, and I think that’s a bit unfortunate because that will restrict the experience. You have to be a little more open, and keep listening to the words. And keep thinking of the chorus as individuals. And as a group of people. As actors and as characters. Rather than thinking ‘oh this is the nice singing bit. I’m going to sit back and enjoy this. We tried to write the music so that it doesn’t invite that. Interviews 43 You’re playing with dissonance, and these particular chords, trying certainly to arrest our attention. Is there any kind of over–arching thing that you’ve been trying to say with your music for this show? It’s that bit of the brain, isn’t it. Music and language are different things. And when you’re trying to do both at the same time, you run into obstacles. But then that’s where the exciting things happen as well. So something that might sound very trite to say might sound amazing when it’s sung. And some great texts would die when sung. Listen. Just listen to this. Listen to each other. Have there been any particular things that have surprised you as you’ve put this together? When the singers do get on their feet, things become easier. They think it’s harder at first, but the act of standing and moving, rather than clutching the score, terrified, just frees everyone up, and the singing comes a lot more easily. And also then just knowing where you stand in the room for different sections, it just locks in your head. It’s an easier way to remember things. Like using a map to remember a list of things. We’ve done at least an hour of music every single day. So it is hard. People have been saying that it’s like maths. Because it requires you to think, and to count. But it’s great. We are going for a level of complexity which isn’t present in a lot of theatre music. But it is in song. That’s the great thing about a Greek tragedy, it’s about a community singing and listening to each other. And it’s not simple stuff. We could have written songs, and maybe that would have been right, but it would not have been for this production. So this is how we went. And it’s a challenge. Oedipus Any other things that have been on your mind as you work on this? I realised that because we’d spent so much time relating the text to the music that the music is made of words. There’s nothing purely musical, simple musical phrases at all. Every bit is a result of the words. Which is more than I’ve usually done. In Flatpack, I wrote the music first and put the words on top. So this is very much built of the micro–bits of the words. Is that a different approach to composition than you’ve done before? It’s more of a sustained thing. For Harp I wrote the melody and then the words afterwards. There’s also another difference in that I haven’t used as much unity of musical motifs. For Flatpack I had a chord made up of three notes from a kitchen mixer that appeared throughout. For Harp it was a phrase with four notes, drawn from the cables of the Samuel Beckett bridge. There isn’t really any of that in this. It’s more like harmonic references. And that’s because I’ve had to pay so much attention to the words. You can’t just impose melodies on things. So each chorus stands alone. And then there’s a kind of recapitulation at the end. It’s that journey as well. Starting with one thing, and then something completely different happens and you have to deal with that. They are kind of all making it up on the spot. Like in a play, you make up your lines on the spot. Interviews 44 What about Jocasta’s invocation, when she comes on stage to pray to Apollo? Jocasta’s prayer is a number. She doesn’t sing, but it comes immediately after the third chorus, when they say ‘Zeus, hear our prayer. The prophecy is failing, Apollo is treated as a joke.’ And the people say that god is dead. And she comes out and says ‘Guide us Apollo, help us now.’ Earlier in the piece we set up a system of underscoring certain sections of the text with humming, so the chorus will come in on specific notes, on specific cues in the text, and it’s enriched by the sound design. The sound comes in under her prayer, and then they sing a response, based on the ‘Zeus hear our prayer’ section. So the observance of religion in the show is obviously going to be tied closely to the music. Yes it is. But then they also talk about the gods at many other moments. But this is the only time Jocasta prays. She’s very atheistic. But it’s a moment of weakness that she shows. Insuring herself. But this was Wayne, he’s so exact. He will say he wants this particular moment underscored, and this to be sung like a prayer. There’s also bits of the messenger speech that will be sung. The sections where she speaks in Oedipus’ voice, and in Jocasta’s voice – only those bits. It’s very exciting. There’s so much singing that has happened before that, I think it will be acceptable. It’s very exciting, but also very scary. We are all learning new things all the time. Every time we put things up on their feet, it’s surprising. And because we’ve been working on it for so long, he’s pushed me in different ways, I’ve pushed him in different ways. I don’t know if it’s conscious or subconscious, but it seems to be working! Oedipus FURTHER READING Oedipus Appendix 46 FURTHER READING Greek Tragedy in Action Things Fall Apart Oliver Taplin (Oxford University Press, 2002) Chinua Achebe (1958) Sophocles, Dramatist & Philosopher Collected Plays HDF Kitto (Oxford University Press, 1958) William Butler Yeats Sophocles, Plays Vol. I Collected Poems ed. Hugh Lloyd–Jones (Loeb Classical Library, 1994) Constantine Cavafy Sophocles, Four Tragedies Selected Poems and Prose ed. Oliver Taplin (Oxford World’s Classics, 2015) Paul Celan Oedipus Tyrranus: Tragic Heroism and The Limits Of Knowledge Charles Segal (Oxford University Press, 2000) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy ed. Pat Easterling (Cambridge University Press, 1997) Aristotle Poetics trans. Anthony Kenny (Oxford World’s Classics, 2013) The Moving Body Jacques LeCoq (Revised edition, trans. David Bradby, Bloomsbury, 2011) Oedipus Bibliography 47 Oedipus Resource Pack 2015 This resource pack was made possible with assistance from the Arts Council Written & Compiled by Conor Hanratty Photography by Pat Redmond Designed by Maeve Keane Artwork by Mariane Picard For more information on this resource pack and the Abbey Theatre’s educational work please contact — Phil Kingston Community and Education Manager [email protected] or visit — www.abbeytheatre.ie/engage Hedda Gabler Colophon 48