By Matthew Wexler
“I think what everyone thinks. We’re sick. The civic body is ill,” says Oedipus in the opening moments of writer-director Robert Icke’s searing new adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy. “And that—that isn’t trees and chemicals in lakes—it’s us—we’re sick.”
It’s a harrowing assertion (walk a few blocks south to The Queen of Versailles, both in subject and production for proof). Icke catapults the story of a man destined to kill his father and marry his mother into a present-day political campaign. Projections indicate that Oedipus (a riveting Mark Strong) will come out on top.
Set in campaign headquarters with a real-time election clock ticking away, Oedipus’s family, led by matriarch Jocasta (a calculated Lesley Manville), gather to wait out the results.
If you read the play in high school English class, you know what’s coming next: the inescapable fate revealed by the blind prophet Teiresias (Samuel Brewer), here portrayed as a “cult” member who’s evaded security to warn of the candidate’s inescapable fate.
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Icke has given himself the ultimate theatrical challenge: create tension when we already know the ending. The convention, for the most part, works brilliantly, thanks to Strong, Manville, and the acting company’s captivating performances. The contemporary setting draws parallels to real-life political and cultural controversies, from Prince Andrew’s involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior to Princess Diana’s death in a high-speed car crash.
But unlike Trump’s obsession with gilding the people’s house for his own amusement, Oedipus’s commitment to truth and transparency lures us toward a sense of authenticity. But his ultimate desire for power seals his fate.
At times, particularly in an impromptu dining scene with the couple’s young adult children and Oedipus’s mother, the play drifts into Chekhovian territory (a gun eventually makes an appearance), with the onstage clock seeming to slow its ticking.
Of all the tragedies that unfold—and there are plenty—Jocasta sums it up best after revealing the traumatic circumstances of becoming pregnant with Oedipus at age 13. “People are good at not knowing. The instinct to look any other direction than the dark.”
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Fast facts: ‘Oedipus’
Robert Icke’s modern Oedipus proves that even when we know the ending, watching the civic body destroy itself in real-time remains devastatingly compelling.
- Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, New York City
- Two hours, no intermisson
- Performances through February 8, 2026
