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[Theater reviews]

African king
Hartford Stage connects with Oedipus

BY CAROLYN CLAY

OEDIPUS THE KING
BY SOPHOCLES. TRANSLATED BY DUDLEY FITTS AND ROBERT FITZGERALD. TEXT CONSULTANT ADRIENNE KENNEDY. DIRECTED BY JONATHAN WILSON. SET DESIGN BY SCOTT BRADLEY. COSTUMES BY SUSAN HILFERTY. LIGHTING BY KEVIN SNOW. ORIGINAL MUSIC BY RENÉ MCLEAN. SOUND BY DAVID STEPHEN BAKER. CHOREOGRAPHY BY KEVIN IEGA JEFF. WITH REG FLOWERS, NOVELLA NELSON, MICHAEL EARLY, JERNARD BURKS, LOU FERGUSON, STEPHANIE BERRY, HELMAR AUGUSTUS COOPER, LAWRENCE JAMES, AND SAIDAH ARRIKA EKULONA. AT HARTFORD STAGE, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, THROUGH FEBRUARY 11.

Out of Africa comes Oedipus the King. Not that anyone needs to beat a drum, of whatever continental persuasion, for Sophocles’s 2400-year-old tragedy, the greatness of which is long established. But Hartford Stage director Jonathan Wilson has come up with an idea that replaces the ritual and pageantry of the ancient Greeks with those of contemporary Africa while establishing an urgent connection to the Athens of approximately 427 BC, where Oedipus the King had its world premiere.

After all, Freud’s favorite royal sets out not to uncover his sordid if unintentional sins and destroy himself but to end the plague that is ravaging the city he rules. This resonated with the original Athenian audience, which had recently lived through a plague of its own. Wilson reasons that a similar connection exists in contemporary Africa, where the AIDS rampage has proved as devastating as any plague. But the director has not set the ancient, primal work in, say, contemporary Johannesburg; instead it is performed by an African theater company, complete with dancers and musicians, for an audience of AIDS patients at a clinic. Sitting before us in a sparse half-circle on a dirt floor, witnessing the tale with interest and dismay, the patients form a sort of audience-within-an-audience for a play whose premise, as with the ancients, holds particular meaning for them. The concept lends itself to the material, as does the African-tinged jazz score by René McLean, without getting in the way of what is a solid staging of Oedipus Rex.

This is also a streamlined staging; it takes the unfortunate king only 70 minutes to learn that, despite his best efforts to avoid fate, he has indeed murdered his father and married his mother. There would seem to be minimal meddling with the Fitts/Fitzgerald translation by esteemed African-American playwright Adrienne Kennedy, who is billed as “text consultant.” But there have been cuts to the long choral odes. The play’s Chorus of Theban Elders is stood in for by a priestess and one male elder. This tactic avoids the oft-sticky wicket of the group chorus without eliminating the public aspect so important to the Greek plays. (Oedipus in particular is both a public investigation and an agonizing trip to self-discovery.) The AIDS patients bear witness to the tragedy and its hard lessons.

Moreover, those lessons are less ameliorated than protracted by the African music-and-dance interludes. One, in particular, serves to underline the dramatic irony of Oedipus’s situation. Having begun to apprehend and dread the truth he seeks, Reg Flowers’s commanding Oedipus learns of the death of the man he believes to be his father and momentarily considers himself off the hook (though it’s evident that Stephanie Berry’s strong, silky Jocasta knows better). A shepherd is summoned to clear things up, and the wait is filled with an exuberant African-dance interlude, during which the relieved king swings to the joyous beat.

The performance does not rise to the level of searing; the only true shrieks emanate from Saidah Arrika Ekulona’s servant, who must report the carnage in the royal house before a bloodied Oedipus appears. But Wilson’s staging is bold and stately, played out on a dirt round that’s set against a circular white-stone platform and the crumbling walls of the city. A circle of stones in the dirt serves as an altar. Oedipus and Jocasta descend from the platform to confront and mingle with the citizenry, but only at the end, when the elders go up on the palace porch to comfort their blinded king, does the reverse happen. The acting takes the form of heightened realism, riding the line between pomp and intense conversation, the performers reacting immediately and perceptibly to what is said — even when what is said is in long, spoken arias.

Flowers, magnificent in caftan and gold circlet, is a charismatic, quick-trigger Oedipus whose stature makes him more pitiable at the end, when he crawls toward the edge of the palace platform, embraces his tiny daughters as if to break them, and finally turns face-up toward a harsh light. Berry combines dignity with creaminess as Jocasta. Lou Ferguson is not only convincingly blind but also spasmodic as the old prophet, Teiresias. Michael Early is a quietly authoritative Creon. Novella Nelson brings a wary wisdom and a rich alto tone to the Priestess. And as the plebeians who narrate the final reversals, Helmar Augustus Cooper, a ceremonious but jolly messenger from Corinth, and Lawrence James, a hard-faced shepherd who yields his truth under pressure, form a study in contrast.

The score, played on stage by musicians Okyerema Asante and Ali Hunter with composer McLean (son of saxophonist Jackie), provides an effective underlay that ranges from birdsong and snake rattles to otherworldly dirge. The dancing, by youths from the community-based Artists Collaborative, is less varied and professional. But it’s rhythmic and energetic, driving home the idea of Oedipus the King as ritual event as well as cautionary tale.

Out of Africa comes Oedipus the King. Not that anyone needs to beat a drum, of whatever continental persuasion, for Sophocles’s 2400-year-old tragedy, the greatness of which is long established. But Hartford Stage director Jonathan Wilson has come up with an idea that replaces the ritual and pageantry of the ancient Greeks with those of contemporary Africa while establishing an urgent connection to the Athens of approximately 427 BC, where Oedipus the King had its world premiere.

After all, Freud’s favorite royal sets out not to uncover his sordid if unintentional sins and destroy himself but to end the plague that is ravaging the city he rules. This resonated with the original Athenian audience, which had recently lived through a plague of its own. Wilson reasons that a similar connection exists in contemporary Africa, where the AIDS rampage has proved as devastating as any plague. But the director has not set the ancient, primal work in, say, contemporary Johannesburg; instead it is performed by an African theater company, complete with dancers and musicians, for an audience of AIDS patients at a clinic. Sitting before us in a sparse half-circle on a dirt floor, witnessing the tale with interest and dismay, the patients form a sort of audience-within-an-audience for a play whose premise, as with the ancients, holds particular meaning for them. The concept lends itself to the material, as does the African-tinged jazz score by René McLean, without getting in the way of what is a solid staging of Oedipus Rex.

This is also a streamlined staging; it takes the unfortunate king only 70 minutes to learn that, despite his best efforts to avoid fate, he has indeed murdered his father and married his mother. There would seem to be minimal meddling with the Fitts/Fitzgerald translation by esteemed African-American playwright Adrienne Kennedy, who is billed as “text consultant.” But there have been cuts to the long choral odes. The play’s Chorus of Theban Elders is stood in for by a priestess and one male elder. This tactic avoids the oft-sticky wicket of the group chorus without eliminating the public aspect so important to the Greek plays. (Oedipus in particular is both a public investigation and an agonizing trip to self-discovery.) The AIDS patients bear witness to the tragedy and its hard lessons.

Moreover, those lessons are less ameliorated than protracted by the African music-and-dance interludes. One, in particular, serves to underline the dramatic irony of Oedipus’s situation. Having begun to apprehend and dread the truth he seeks, Reg Flowers’s commanding Oedipus learns of the death of the man he believes to be his father and momentarily considers himself off the hook (though it’s evident that Stephanie Berry’s strong, silky Jocasta knows better). A shepherd is summoned to clear things up, and the wait is filled with an exuberant African-dance interlude, during which the relieved king swings to the joyous beat.

The performance does not rise to the level of searing; the only true shrieks emanate from Saidah Arrika Ekulona’s servant, who must report the carnage in the royal house before a bloodied Oedipus appears. But Wilson’s staging is bold and stately, played out on a dirt round that’s set against a circular white-stone platform and the crumbling walls of the city. A circle of stones in the dirt serves as an altar. Oedipus and Jocasta descend from the platform to confront and mingle with the citizenry, but only at the end, when the elders go up on the palace porch to comfort their blinded king, does the reverse happen. The acting takes the form of heightened realism, riding the line between pomp and intense conversation, the performers reacting immediately and perceptibly to what is said — even when what is said is in long, spoken arias.

Flowers, magnificent in caftan and gold circlet, is a charismatic, quick-trigger Oedipus whose stature makes him more pitiable at the end, when he crawls toward the edge of the palace platform, embraces his tiny daughters as if to break them, and finally turns face-up toward a harsh light. Berry combines dignity with creaminess as Jocasta. Lou Ferguson is not only convincingly blind but also spasmodic as the old prophet, Teiresias. Michael Early is a quietly authoritative Creon. Novella Nelson brings a wary wisdom and a rich alto tone to the Priestess. And as the plebeians who narrate the final reversals, Helmar Augustus Cooper, a ceremonious but jolly messenger from Corinth, and Lawrence James, a hard-faced shepherd who yields his truth under pressure, form a study in contrast.

The score, played on stage by musicians Okyerema Asante and Ali Hunter with composer McLean (son of saxophonist Jackie), provides an effective underlay that ranges from birdsong and snake rattles to otherworldly dirge. The dancing, by youths from the community-based Artists Collaborative, is less varied and professional. But it’s rhythmic and energetic, driving home the idea of Oedipus the King as ritual event as well as cautionary tale.