Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - November 13, 2025 Oedipus. Adapted from Sophocles and directed by Robert Icke. Scenic design by Hildegard Bechtler. Costume design by Wojciech Dziedzic . Lighting design by Natasha Chivers. Sound design by Tom Gibbons. Video design by Tal Yarden. Dialect coach Kate Wilson.
Icke, who also brilliantly directs the two-hour (no intermission) knockout of a production, is blessed with a sensational cast to work with, especially the power couple at the center of it all: Mark Strong, reprising his Olivier-nominated role as Oedipus, and Lesley Manville, reprising her Olivier-winning role as Jocasta. What a pair, this dynamic duo we first spot on a video at a final rally and press conference on election day. Oedipus is seeking office (not specified, but it's on the level of president or prime minister), and he comes off as a straightforward man of the people whom he pledges to serve unstintingly. But as his prepared remarks wind down, and quite clearly against the wishes of his campaign manager and brother-in-law Creon (John Carroll Lynch), he veers from his well-vetted speech and makes a couple of promises to the gathered throng. First, In the wake of his unnamed opponent's innuendos about the legitimacy of his citizenship, he promises to release his birth certificate. It's almost a throwaway line in the midst of a typical stump speech, and the obvious reference to the Trump/Obama kerfuffle brings a few knowing chuckles from the audience, though the significance is something else altogether. The moment makes Creon squirm as he quickly attempts to hustle Oedipus away from the reporters and TV cameras. Still our man isn't quite finished. He makes a second commitment, to reopen an investigation into the death of Laius, his wife's first husband and former holder of the office Oedipus is now seeking. I never thought I'd say this, but, politician, listen to your campaign manager and stick to the script. All of this takes place before the curtain rises on the single set in which the play itself takes place, an institutional-looking space (designed by Hildegard Bechtler) which serves as Oedipus' campaign headquarters, and where the family will be spending the night as the election tallies come in.
The central set piece is a dinner party in honor of the election, which Oedipus is expected to win handily. A countdown clock quite visible on one wall ticks off the seconds in real time, ostensibly to mark the closing of the polls and the confirmation of victory. But, of course, it is also counting down the time to the hellish explosion we know to be on its unstoppable way. The dinner becomes an opportunity for the airing of grievances among those gathered. In particular, a sibling rivalry among the three offspring is in full swing, and the play does lose some of its momentum here, especially when tattling leads to a jiggered-into-the-storyline father and son moment in which a secret about one of the brothers is revealed. But that quickly passes, and there are so many formidable events throughout, that an occasional tangent can be absorbed. Two bombshell moments are offered up by unexpected visitors to the scene. One we've met, Merope, who though a misfit among the sophisticated family members, has nevertheless come on a mission, an urgent piece of business she needs to discuss with Oedipus. The other is the soothsayer Teiresias (Samuel Brewer, giving a truly gripping performance), who barges his way into the compound to share an unwelcome prophecy, one that angers Oedipus but that he dismisses out of hand. "People," says Jocasta at one point in the play, "are good at not knowing." Oedipus, so sure of himself, is a paradigm of this truism. But, really, the case for "not knowing" is a strong one. The presumption that Merope and her husband, who is in hospital and on his deathbed, are Oedipus' biological parents, puts a lie to every slowly released piece of evidence that, cumulatively, will end the play as it must, not with a whisper but a bang. Icke's adaptation is an absolute model of Hitchcockian suspense, and the performances could not be better. If I have to single out the crown jewel here, it would be Lesley Manville's portrayal of Jocasta, whose certitude we observe dissolving in her face and bodily movements as the countdown clock foretells doom. If Oedipus is the king of "not knowing," she is not its queen. She has suppressed a lot of bad memories about her pedophile first husband and of a cover-up about his death, and it is both breathtaking and heartbreaking to watch her crumbling as everything is revealed bit by bit in real time. And despite the fact that we have known all along what is coming, the ending that Icke has provided for us is devastating. At one point, Antigone raises a rhetorical question: "What's the difference between a riddle and a paradox?" Oedipus' reply: "One has solutions. One you'd just have to live with." Or not.
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