Oedipus – 25 November 2025

Robert Icke’s bold modernization of Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex imagines a politician (Mark Strong) in the last hours of his campaign finding out that his commitment to honesty has unknowingly led him to tell his constituents a number of lies. Facing the grim reality that he has unknowingly lied about his parentage, killed his biological father, and slept with his mother (Lesley Manville), Oedipus curls up in a fetal position and finds himself unable to face a public that will surely see him as just another politician with falsified documents, blood on his hands, and an ugly sexual history.

Icke’s modern rewrite kept its allegory surprisingly faithful to Sophocles’s plot twists, and successfully translated the characters’ relationships to modern day equivalents. This was most apparent with Antigone (Olivia Reis) and Polyneices (James Wilbraham) embodying the strength in prophetic Greek women and unabashed inclusion of gay people in Greek life respectively. The countdown clock on the set (Hildegard Bechtler) served as both a reminder that all Greek plays take place within the span of a single day and a device to show Oedipus’s willful ignorance despite high intelligence, as the clock counted down to the chilling realization that his wife was also his mother. Personally, I’m not a fan of the countdown clock. It draws attention to parts of the production that drag and is the equivalent of acknowledging that audience members might want to check their watches. Another somewhat unnecessary scenic choice was the decision to tear down the campaign room set, literally pulling the rug out from under the actors. It seemed as though this was less about advancing the plot and more about Icke not knowing how to end a scene. The construction needs were a thinly veiled way to interrupt conversations, admit new characters to the space, and allow the current players to exit to make way for the next thing. This was a disappointing directorial decision on Icke’s part, and it also circled back to the countdown clock, making it feel as though scenes would be interrupted whether they were finished or not in order to keep the show in the right time codes.

The acting performances were all top notch, and the show was enjoyable to watch, if a bit long in some places. Icke’s cleverly inserted references to revelations to come had audience members who were in the know laughing from the start, while building suspense for others less familiar with the original text. The show ironically put the focus on love rather than sex: the toasts at dinner, romantic foreplay between Oedipus and Jocasta, conversations with the children, protectiveness of Merope (Anne Reid), and devotion of Corin (Bhasker Patel). Going one step further than Sophocles, Icke doesn’t treat people as commodities bonded by law, but rather lovers forging their own bonds. The strength of Jocasta and Oedipus’s love makes the ending not just shameful, but also tragically painful because it pulls on the audience’s heartstrings. We liked seeing a seemingly healthy, loving marriage built on trust and compatibility. It was devastating to watch them both shed their clothing and be embarrassed by their nakedness as they stepped out of their ability to be who they always thought they were. 

The broader context begs questions about whether politicians can ever be honest, whether it is natural for everyone to have secrets, and how much of life is really a predetermined fate. Oedipus is striking in its relevance and entrancing in its performance. It is refreshing to see something so poignant and powerful on a Broadway stage.

I did not attend this performance on a press pass.