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Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Jonathan Kent.
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Alan Howard, Clare Higgins, Patrick Brennan, Steven Page, Christopher Saul, David Shaw-Parker, Malcolm Storry
Description: Ralph Fiennes stars in Frank McGuinness's version of the ancient Greek tragedy. With Clare Higgins as Jocasta and Alan Howard as Teiresias.
Trains: Tube/BR: Waterloo 
Phone: 0207452 3000
Website: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=1541
Haunted: Ralph Fiennes as Oedipus and Clare Higgins as Jocasta in Jonathan Kent’s production at the National Theatre
It may have been first performed more than 400 years before Christ. But as the startling, shaven-headed, sharp-suited King Oedipus of Ralph Fiennes at once reminds us, Sophocles’s tragic hero with one hell of a past speaks just as much to us as ancient Greece. Jonathan Kent’s production, with a foot both in camps ancient and modern, still has a terrible fascination about it. Fiennes duly has a big, brave, bold shot at a role that demands the emotional virtuosity of a Gielgud, Scofield or Redgrave and to whose high notes he cannot entirely rise.
True to a hint in the programme, watching Fiennes’s Oedipus, by progressive turns haughty, shifty, elementally aghast and cut to the blinded quick, is to witness a man intent upon being his own psychoanalyst, in remorseless, fearful pursuit of the self he never knew he was. Thanks to his invaluable take upon the character, this Oedipus comes to seem not just a man who has unknowingly killed his father and in ignorance married the woman who bore him. His Oedipus speaks to us about our fear of self-scrutiny and self-discovery, our facing up to discovered truth and somehow bearing it. Jasper Britton’s brisk, affably relaxed Creon offers a suitable, temperamental contrast, though turns scathingly contemptuous when taking over the reins of power.
Kent’s Oedipus makes such a disconcerting, uncertain impact because of its clash of ancient and modern styles. Paul Brown’s stage, with a tilted, revolving disc, is dominated by huge, burnt-copper double doors and appears splendidly ancient. Yet a wooden table with benches attached could have been loaned from the garden of a country pub. There are no observable symptoms of the ghastly plague except for brief views of ruined trees and sinister birds astride them. The Chorus, always a source of anxiety for contemporary directors, is here disastrously rendered by 15 sombre, suited, middle-aged, socially superior gentlemen who variously speak, sing and chant —often drowning out each other’s words. This failure may well be fortunate. For the words they have to speak are more often ridiculous than sublime. Frank McGuinness, an always interesting, individual playwright, is not the best of translators. His new version of Oedipus has been hyperbolically savaged by Germaine Greer, who ignores McGuinness’s gift for terse compression and avoidance of stately archaisms. Even so, far too much of the McGuinness text, particularly his speeches for the chorus, a group akin to dignified but slightly disturbed MP, sounds preposterous. “You can’t leave this for others to clear up,” sounds a typically low-rent note.
A shirt-sleeved Fiennes, collapsing in the arms of Alan Howard’s sombre Teiresias or in the lap of Clare Higgins’s oddly subdued Jocasta, who’s dressed up to look unsuitably common, adopts the hunted look of a man on the run. When finally confronted by the truth he emits a long, muted shriek of pain that chills the blood. He tears open his mouth in a soundless scream of grief. Blinded he resembles a Beckettian vagrant. It is an evening of many flaws, but as Fiennes demonstrates, Oedipus remains irresistibly terrifying.
Until 4 January. Box office: 020 87452 3000, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
The play was immense, a thoroughly chilling performance from each and ever cast member in particular from Ralph Fiennes, whos shifty paranoid Oedipus was one of the best performances I've seen. Not only was the acting favourable but the set and costume desgin was ingenious. Minimal yet completely effective. A masterpiece of a play skillfully adapted to a modernistic setting, I advise all to see it if possible.
- Elliot Cheall-Sharp, Newtown, Wales
A big disappointment, I was totally unmoved. Higgins and Howard were good but the awkward translation and awful chorus brought this great play to its knees and Fiennes could not find the tragic depth of this role, his acting was external. I much preferred Katie Mitchell's recent Greek work at the National, her Women of Troy and Iphegenia at Aulis were powerhouses. Kent's Oedipus lacked myth and passion.
- Derek, London
Everything about it was bloody terrific!
One came out of it feeling as if one had gone through the wringer with the protagonists.
A GREAT cathartic evening. One headed afterwards for Waterloo Station wanting to shout out loud ' Thank You Jonathan, Ralph, Claire - EVERYONE involved for giving us this production.
One would like to think that it will tour to the Athens Festival or Epidaurus - and certainly New York - and the sooner the National starts putting more of its productions like the Royal Opera House - through Opus Arte - the better
- Pat Shaw, Bangkok, Thailand
I loved it. Everything about it. The translation was fabulous, the design wonderful, the directing utterly clear and most of all, the acting. Not one weak link. The chorus were fantastic, as was everybody. Thank you for a cracking evening at the theatre.
- Clara Salaman, London
