Icke Oedipus

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78850-808-7
Verlag: Nick Hern Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 112 Seiten

Reihe: NHB Modern Plays

'Time turns, sets a backward course, starts for the start with speed: the fragile moments drop unravelling, reversing, unwound, back to the beginning.' Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change. Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke transforms Sophocles' epic tragedy into an essential and explosive political thriller. First performed in Dutch in 2018 at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam and the Edinburgh International Festival, this arresting version of Oedipus received its English-language premiere at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2024, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. The production won Icke the Best Director Award at the 2025 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, as well as Best Actor and Best Actress for its leads. Robert Icke is one of the most visionary figures in theatre today, celebrated for his contemporary re-imaginings of classic texts by Shakespeare, Schiller, Chekhov, Aeschylus and Ibsen. 'Robert Icke is the great hope of British theatre'Time Out

Robert Icke is a writer and director. His recent productions include Judas, Children of Nora and Oedipus at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam; Player Kings (West End and UK tour); Enemy of the People (Park Avenue Armory); Animal Farm (UK tour); Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart); and The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory, Adelaide Festival, Almeida, West End and Burgtheater, Vienna). His work while Associate Director at the Almeida (2013-19) included adapting and directing The Wild Duck, Mary Stuart (also West End and UK tour), Uncle Vanya, Oresteia (also West End and Park Avenue Armory) and 1984 (co-created with Duncan Macmillan, also Broadway, West End, UK and international tours). As a director, his productions included Hamlet (also West End, BBC2 and Park Avenue Armory), The Fever and Mr Burns.  His awards include two Evening Standard Awards for Best Director, the Critics' Circle Award, the Kurt Hübner Award for his debut production in Germany, and the Olivier Award for Best Director for Oresteia, of which he is the youngest-ever winner. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Icke, Robert

Weitere Mitwirkende

Sophocles

Leseproben

MEROPE OEDIPUS

OEDIPUS CREON

CREON It’s like you don’t even know you’re doing it. You can ignore a question – you know, nothing bad happens if a question’s left unanswered.

OEDIPUS MEROPE

OEDIPUS Mum.

You look beautiful.

Hello.

MEROPE Hello

OEDIPUS I didn’t see you there.

MEROPE No

OEDIPUS I didn’t / see you

MEROPE I know.

OEDIPUS I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight –

MEROPE I didn’t tell you.

,

OEDIPUS How is he?

MEROPE The same.

,

OEDIPUS I hadn’t realised you were going to be here – I / didn’t know

MEROPE I need some time with you alone.

JOCASTA

OEDIPUS Honey, my is here –

JOCASTA Hello

OEDIPUS look at this –

JOCASTA How long have you been here?

MEROPE An hour or so. This place is a tip.

JOCASTA Why clean, is what I always say – you can’t prevent decay – ( OEDIPUS) but the campaign is over and we have all earned a little celebration

OEDIPUS I’m – a bit by the fact that my mother has travelled all the way here to surprise me tonight, which must have been your [JOCASTA’s] doing – a

JOCASTA She –

MEROPE No, that isn’t why I came. I didn’t know.

,

MEROPE JOCASTA

JOCASTA – tonight is a night for us to celebrate –

MEROPE You know it’s not his birthday.

JOCASTA I do know that, yes –

OEDIPUS Ladies –

CREON Sorry – it’s a very / busy

MEROPE I need to talk to him

OEDIPUS ANTIGONE JOCASTA

ANTIGONE Dad!

OEDIPUS And the scholar returns!

JOCASTA oh wonderful

OEDIPUS Is the gang all here – ?

ANTIGONE I’m here for the victory party

OEDIPUS well you’re two hours early

ANTIGONE well I brought work

OEDIPUS and what mystery of human nature are we unscrambling this evening?

ANTIGONE The difference between a paradox and a riddle.

OEDIPUS And they say academics have become irrelevant. What is it?

ANTIGONE what?

OEDIPUS The difference

ANTIGONE One’s got a solution – one’s just something you have to live with?

OEDIPUS Sounds like the choice on the ballot paper

JOCASTA Oedipus

OEDIPUS One has solutions. One you’d just have to live with.

JOCASTA It’s all behind us, the campaign’s over, the polls are closed.

MEROPE I need to speak to him

CREON Sorry. Not now. He has a meeting.

OEDIPUS Cancel it.

CREON No.

JOCASTA What is it?

CREON It’s me.

OEDIPUS Now? We can speak later

CREON After tonight, you have no later

OEDIPUS One night off. One night off is all I ask

CREON ( JOCASTA) Could you please tell your husband / that

OEDIPUS ( JOCASTA) Could you please tell

JOCASTA Overruling, two against one, how long will it take?

CREON [Thank you] – really not very long

OEDIPUS I’m guessing we still have security here tonight?

CREON No, because I have absolutely no idea how to do my job –

OEDIPUS The tragedy is: you think that’s a joke.

JOCASTA It’s a conversation, yes? Do it, have it, then we can relax –

JOCASTA OEDIPUS

MEROPE Oedipus, I need a few minutes with you. Alone.

OEDIPUS Why?

MEROPE If it were for public consumption, it wouldn’t need to be alone.

OEDIPUS Okay. Well, hold fire – and later, we’ll catch up. Corin, my friend, could you take my mother and look after her with the utmost care and attention?

CORIN ()

CORIN It would be my pleasure

OEDIPUS And before the evening is out, we will find a moment to talk.

MEROPE Very good.

LICHAS The third office is already cleared –

CORIN I’ll bring you to it – this way

MEROPE CORIN OEDIPUS LICHAS

OEDIPUS So, an unscheduled surprise?

LICHAS It would be less surprising if we’d put it on the schedule.

OEDIPUS You drew the shortest of short straws – being here tonight

LICHAS I wanted to be. Honestly.

OEDIPUS CREON OEDIPUS

OEDIPUS Now let me get ahead of you – and admit that I didn’t say word for word what you / wanted me to say

CREON It’s Captain Exceptional again, the superhuman, saviour of the world –

OEDIPUS You can’t just put words in my mouth

CREON That is literally what speechwriting is

OEDIPUS I will speak from myself. I will say what I want to say as I accept the position for which I have spent a year running. With help. Yes. But it is me they are electing and me they will hear. I will speak from myself. All right?

CREON Most leaders would discuss strategy before announcing it to the world. And is complex. No plan. No discussion. The birth certificate – and God, reopening Laius’ death?

OEDIPUS If I say in public we’re doing it, then we have to do it. It keeps you on your toes –

CREON It should have been . It’s complex and, as usual, there’s more involved than you realised / when you

OEDIPUS I am so sick of it being a problem to this campaign that I am not dishonest –

CREON Your image, the way you are , is something we have to control

OEDIPUS Now? No. I am me. I am me. The campaign’s done. It’s over.

TEIRESIAS Oedipus

OEDIPUS Who’s this?

TEIRESIAS Oedipus – I know your voice.

TEIRESIAS

OEDIPUS ( CREON) Did you get me a stripper?

CREON I’m sorry, I think you’ve come to the wrong place

TEIRESIAS Oedipus, you can hear me – you are

CREON How did you get in here?

TEIRESIAS The child brought me.

OEDIPUS Everyone welcome.

CREON I do apologise: this is supposed to be a secure location, and you don’t have permission to be / here

TEIRESIAS –

LICHAS I’ll get security

OEDIPUS Oh come on, look at him – if he manages to assassinate me against those odds, fair play to him.

OEDIPUS

Come. Can I have...