Hello from St. Petersburg! If you are wondering about the weather, its cold. Today I want to write a little bit on the play that I have just seen, "Oedipus the King" at the at the Theatre on Liteiny. This wasn't my favorite play, but it was one of the most powerful that I have seen on this trip.

The play told the story of Oedipus, the king of Thebes, he had recently saved the city from ruin by solving the Sphinx's puzzle. By saving the city he was then proclaimed king and married the widowed older queen Jocasta. Soon however a plague of infertility strikes Thebes and the crops won't grow and women are barren. Oedipus then consults the oracles of Delphi and they proclaim that to end the plague the killer of Jocasta's first husband, King Laius, must be brought to justice. Oedipus then decrees that King Laius' killer, when found, will be blinded and cast out of the city. However he cannot find the killer, slowly however he finds clues that lead to a disturbing conclusion. First, Oedipus finds out that he does not know who his real parents were, he was adopted at birth when a shepperd found him in the wilderness. Then he realizes that King Laius and Jocasta had a son that they left to die in the wilderness, for that son was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Then he realizes with horror that he was the man who killed King Laius and that he was the baby that was left out to die, saved by a shepperd. Oedipus was the son fated to kill his father and marry his mother and has done precisely that. Jocasta upon hearing this hangs herself and Oedipus fulfills his decree by blinding himself and banishing himself from Thebes.

If you think I have given the story away, the whole story was all shown to us in the first five minutes, in dance. That was a risk that I feel really payed off however, the story itself wasn't the main point of this play. It was the fact that we knew what was going to happen and so we were voyagers, waiting and watching to see how others would react to the truth. With this goal in mind the play succeeded in milking put every emotion that a tragedy could have in it. There were only three actors (two males and a female) who all had multiple roles and their skill floored me. They could change their emotions, faces, and physical movements like a flick of the switch. One moment an actor was an old man, the next a sacrificial sheep, with each movement being carefully choreographed to convey not just why he had changed roles but the importance each role had. In the end however the true star of the play emerged, the actress who played Jocasta was unbelievable. The last scenes of the play, when the truth is slowing being realized by the Jocasta and Oedipus are milked for all they are worth. the Director knows that he has the audience, we can't help but look on as Jocasta begins to realize the horror of what she has done. she has laid in bed with her husband's murderer who is also her son. To describe in words her actions wouldn't do the acting justice, all I can say is that the actress really does convey the horror of the situation in bone chilling words and actions, I don't think a single person could blink. It was a huge contrast from the light humorous dance number in the beginning.

The stage itself was pure barren wasteland. I found that it didn't really add anything to the acting because there really wasn't anything there, just dirt and stones, the actors themselves had to create the show, they were the real props. The lighting too had the same role, when the lights were on, they were floodlights, they made sure that the audience looked at the actors but mostly they just made sure we knew where to look. The only difference seemed to be when the humorous dance number in the beginning of the play started. In the starting dance the actors seemed to take a secondary role to the dancing, the lights, the music and the props.

I want to add a little thing about the dance number right here since I have mentioned it a few times. In the beginning the actors came on stage and danced for us. They told the whole story of Oedipus with a dance in 5 minutes. It was light, cheesy, and fun, the actors themselves overacting to the point of absurdity and mocking everything, incest, murder, and drama, with a smile on their faces. The reason I feel that they did this however was to show the audience true contrast. We could not appreciate drama without knowing what over-dramatization really was. We could not watch with morbid fascination as Jocasta realized the magnitude of her horrible sin if we didn't see her take it lightly before.

This powerful play really did deserve the multiple encores in the end, and I know that it will have me thinking for many more days.