Court Theatre serves up a masterpiece in ‘Oedipus Rex’

Even after he’d murdered his father and slept with his mother, King Oedipus of Thebes still could have changed his missile-like trajectory toward damnation. All he needed to do was stop asking questions. End his relentless pursuit of self-knowledge.

Had he listened to his wife Jocasta when she begged him to stop seeking answers about his birth, had he not sent for the ancient shepherd who knew the secret of his true parentage — things might have been different.

Oedipus’ past actions wouldn’t have changed — he still would have been married to his mother. But he would have gone to his grave believing in his guiltlessness. All of which begs the thorniest of questions: Is it better to bumble along in ignorance of your own part in the world’s ugliness or is it better to see things as they are — even if it the sight of them destroys you?

Court Theatre’s “Oedipus Rex” doesn’t presume to answer the question. Adapted from Sophocles by the late Nicholas Rudall and directed by Charles Newell, the 80-minute steamroller that opened Saturday mercilessly confronts the audience with questions that can’t be answered this side of mortality. Then it abandons the audience to thrash around with them. Spoiler alert: If you don’t know the ending of the nearly 2,500-year-old tragedy that’s been covered by artists from the Greeks to the Doors, you might want to stop here.

Court’s production is stark, stylized and the polar opposite of the feel-good holiday shows that many theaters bank on this time of year. This is a world of ferocious, unforgiving pagan gods who toy with humans like willful children gleefully dismembering their Barbies. These are gods of wrack and ruin, not salvation and celebration. Oedipus (Kelvin Roston Jr.) seeks enlightenment at the Oracle’s urging, but when he achieves it, he’s compelled to mutilate his eyes until he’s in darkness, this time literally instead of metaphorically.

Michael Brosilow

Newell’s highly physical production is a barrage of dream-like images, many of them created by a chorus that doubles as a dance ensemble for movement director Erin Kilmurray. The first thing the audience sees is a wordless depiction of the plague that’s been sent by the angry Apollo and turning Thebes into a killing ground. In ghostly white, the ensemble writhes and gasps as if all were living out their final moments.

The plot begins as Oedipus turns to the Oracle to find out how to appease Apollo. Creon (Timothy Edward Kane) delivers the verdict: The plague will end when the murderer of Laius, the king who preceded Oedipus, is caught and punished. So Oedipus sets out to find the killer of the man he doesn’t know is his father. The plot turns into a labyrinth of prophecies and curses and incest, but in short: Oedipus keeps pulling at the thread of discovery until he has unraveled his entire life. His queen, Jocasta (Kate Collins) won’t survive the truth’s outing. Their surviving daughter Antigone (Aeriel Williams) will be shunned. If the Apollo’s plague is still ongoing, it’s been forgotten in the new maze of blood and sorrow.

At the epicenter of this torrent of emotion is Roston’s towering Oedipus. He begins with regal benevolence, a king at home with the mighty power he wields on behalf of his people. He ends crumpled, weeping and all but helpless. It’s an epic transition, to say the least. Roston owns it, from towering majesty through harrowing fall. Collins’ Jocasta isn’t called on to be quite as intense, but it’s a nightmarish moment when Collins gradually morphs from hilarity to horror as the Queen sees precisely what her husband’s quest will expose.

John Culbert’s s scenic design is all hard, stark planes of brutally bright white. There is no place to hide. There is a treacherous staircase. The set is literally cleft, an ankle-snapping trough running through it. Jacqueline Firkins costumes the chorus in diaphanous, spectral white, and puts Roston in rich purple robes that become slick and heavy with gore in the final moments.

In the end, the dialogue melts away and chorus leader Mark Spates Smith and Sheldon D. Brown (a magnetic presence throughout) lead the cast in a hushed, gospel chorus. If it’s a harbinger of the upcoming (this spring) “The Gospel at Colonus,” (which will be set at an African American Pentecostal church), it bodes well for Sophocles’ next tragedy.

Catey Sullivan is a local freelance writer.