OEDIPUS Oedipus - National Theatre/Olivier Previews
October 8, opens October 15
A bracing array of revivals from playwrights
across the spectrum goes back to the beginning, so to speak, with the National
Theatre's eagerly awaited production of Oedipus, the Sophocles play here
served up in a new translation by Frank McGuinness that reteams in production
the director Jonathan Kent with his Tony-winning Hamlet, Ralph Fiennes. The
commitment of two-time Oscar nominee Fiennes to the stage has long been
something quite singular. Not many actors possessed of his screen stature would
appear first in Yasmina Reza's now-closed God of Carnage and then segue
without much of a break to so defining a tragedy as this one. Expect fireworks
not just from Fiennes center-stage but from a supporting cast headed by the
redoubtable Clare Higgins as Jocasta and Alan Howard, himself a notable
Oedipus in his day, as Teiresias, Howard with
this production marking a welcome recovery from illness in his return to the
South Bank theater where he has so often distinguished himself.
Matt Wolf
Broadway.com in
London