Oedipus

by Robert Icke

Overview

Election night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change.

Award-winning writer and director Robert Icke transforms Sophocles' epic tragedy into an essential and explosive political thriller.

First performed in Dutch in 2018 at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam and the Edinburgh International Festival, this arresting version of Oedipus received its English-language premiere at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2024, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. The production won Icke the Best Director Award at the 2025 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, as well as Best Actor and Best Actress for its leads.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839043598
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	09/16/2025
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Icke is a writer, director, and former Associate Director at the Almeida (2013-19). His recent productions include Judas, Children of Nora, and Oedipus at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam; Player Kings (West End and UK tour); Enemy of the People (Park Avenue Armory); Animal Farm (UK tour); Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart); and The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory, Adelaide Festival, Almeida, West End, and Burgtheater, Vienna).

His awards include two Evening Standard Awards for Best Director, a Critics' Circle Award, the Kurt Hübner Award for his debut production in Germany, and an Olivier Award for Best Director for Oresteia, of which he is the youngest-ever winner. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Sophocles (c.496–405 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian. Of his more than 120 plays, only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus.

Editorial Reviews

Electric…riveting from beginning to end…Icke has done an astonishing job…An old play is masterfully analysed and made newly devastating.
—Guardian

Stunning…Icke brilliantly remakes Sophocles' profoundly disturbing tragedy for our times.
—Financial Times

Wrenchingly tense…Icke invokes a sense of the past in a vivid contemporary milieu…an extraordinary evening…this show is mother****in' good'.
—Evening Standard

Riveting…a slew of smart ironies, with the mother of all twists…tragedy at its best.
—Sunday Times

Lethal but compassionate… defiantly humane…a singularity of purpose that distils a famously lurid story into something empathetic, lucid and quite, quite devastating.
—Time Out

Stunning…razor-sharp and contemporary…a blinding theatrical experience that remains seared on the retina.
—Lyn Gardner, Stagedoor

Electric…there will surely not be a more powerful production in the UK this year…a play for today.
—Observer

Devastating…Icke ratchets up enough tension to cause gasps…he knows exactly how to create a realistic, involving drama while allowing the prefiguring dramatic irony of the language to foreshadow events. The result is as gripping as a thriller, yet weighted with the terrible sense of what might have been…a modern reminder of the power of Greek tragedy to lay bare all the grief of the human soul.
—WhatsOnStage

Stylish and shattering…Icke's reworking is bold and affecting…The piece has a cumulative power that builds gradually until the atmosphere is riveting, suffocating and unbearably tense.
—The Stage

A tantalisingly fresh take on the Greek tragedy…Icke's brilliant reimagining achieves the monumental feat of taking a Greek drama where (almost) everyone thinks they know what's going to happen, and turning it into an exercise in tension, one that etches its message with the painful efficiency of a tattoo gun…he makes it impossible to look away, even for a moment.
—Independent

Startling…Icke's profound connection with the Greeks is once again made gloriously evident.
—iNews

A devastating, seamless update of Sophocles…achieves a level of catharsis rare for any production of an ancient text.
—New Statesman

From the Publisher