However Sophocles version is the only one to have survived. Modern versions of the story are not unknown; Steven Berkoff has written a powerful retelling of the myth, 'Greek', setting it in the back streets of the East End; Stravinsky and Cocteau's opera-oratorio, 'Oedipus Rex' provides a startling version set against a political and religious backdrop; and presently there will be a 'new' version of the Oedipus story, 'Omma', at the Young Vic in London, although rehearsals came to a halt recently when the actors left the production two weeks before the opening night.
Sophocles' Oedipus was a reminder of the Gods' power over man and to teach him a salutary lesson. Of course such 'lessons' are irrelevant to us today. Or are they? Havant: The haunting murmurs of distressed parents and villagers in white, expressionless masks filled Havant Arts Centre with a certain eeriness last week.
Strong performances from Neil Kendall as Oedipus and Alan Jenkins as Creon and other well-acted parts, unravelled an emotive take of extreme human suffering, perhaps more disturbing than any scenario imaginable. King Oedipus was taken in by a loving couple when he was a few days old after his true mother had given him to a shepherd to kill him because she was informed the boy was cursed by the gods. The story as it developed, uncovered a number of sinister occurrences as Oedipus discovered he had killed his father without knowing his blood tie and married his mother, which meant his own children were also his brothers and sisters.
In the end the sickened king gouged his own eyes out. The News, 7th March top of page. He lived through the upheaval of the Peloponnesian War, which lasted from to , and stripped Athens of her place as cultural and political capital of the Greek city-states. Many of his plays comment on the long war—perhaps the most famous is Lysistrata, whose heroine leads a sex strike in order to bring about peace.
He produced his first play in Before his death in the s he had written 44 comedies, of which we have eleven. The first great tragedian, Aeschylus, was born around b.
He produced his first dramas in , and he had his first victory in We know he was still working in , when he produced his trilogy Oresteia. In these competitions, Sophocles was king. It is thought that he won the first prize at the Athenian festival eighteen times. Far from being a tortured artist working at the fringes of society, Sophocles was among the most popular and well-respected men of his day.
Like most good Athenians, Sophocles was involved with the political and military affairs of Athenian democracy. He did stints as a city treasurer and as a naval officer, and throughout his life he was a close friend of the foremost statesman of the day, Pericles. At the same time, Sophocles wrote prolifically.
He is believed to have authored plays, only seven of which have survived. Sophocles lived a long life, but not long enough to witness the downfall of his Athens. Toward the end of his life, Athens became entangled in a war with other city-states jealous of its prosperity and power, a war that would end the glorious century during which Sophocles lived. This political fall also marked an artistic fall, for the unique art of Greek theater began to fade and eventually died.
Since then, we have had nothing like it. His death in B. Athens in the fifth century B. For Sophocles to emerge as the most popular playwright among his contemporaries — the older Aeschylus and the younger Euripides — attests to his genius for moving audiences with powerful poetry and stagecraft. Sophocles wrote more than plays, but only seven complete tragedies survive.
Of the rest, only some titles and fragments remain. As late as , a papyrus with several hundred lines of a Sophoclean play called The Ichneutae turned up in Egypt. Perhaps someday other lost plays will come to light, although the prospect seems unlikely. Originally produced around B. In Antigone B. Electra B. Oedipus the King B. Sophocles dramatizes the story of the death of Hercules in The Trachinae B. Sophocles' last work, Oedipus at Colonus , presents the death of Oedipus; it was produced in B.
Of all the surviving plays, the tragedies of the Oedipus Trilogy — Oedipus the King , Oedipus at Colonus , and Antigone — are the best known and most often produced. Although all three plays are part of the same story, Sophocles did not create them to be performed as a single theatrical production.
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