Orlando Sentinel

'Oedipus' flex: A king's story A theater company reshapes Sophocles' classic with a more primitive bent.

By Rebecca Swain Vadnie | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 1, 2005

What kind of Greek chorus is this?

The actors are dressed in rough cloth skirts and breastplates of bone and metal, not gauzy white togas. Instead of floating in to plucked harps, they pour wildly into the half-hidden courtyard at the Studio Theatre to the heartbeatlike pounding of drums.

There are no streams of poetic odes to move the plot along, just the haunting chant of voices moving in and out of unison as they whisper words of death, disease and murder, calling out in the night to Oedipus, Sophocles' tortured and tragic king, to save them.

At Studio Theatre, the story of Oedipus -- the king who murders his father and marries his mother -- is the same, but the execution is not. The Empty Spaces Theatre Company's new production, Oedipus the King , is Sophocles' primal cousin, a melding of tribute and reinvention whose vision cannot be credited to one mind alone.

It's a creation as nontraditional in its birth as it is in its stage existence.

"Usually, I come in with a very specific vision, which is the way it's usually done," director John DiDonna says. "Empty Spaces Theatre Company is about collaboration. We want to go through that exploration. It's got to be a creation, not a product."

This is the first production for the new company, but the collaborative philosophy behind it is one DiDonna says he and Empty Spaces co-founder Seth Kubersky -- who provided additional direction for the show -- have shared for "quite some time."

Rehearsals for Oedipus began before a final version of the adaptation was complete. DiDonna gave collaborators plot points, ideas and feedback but took a hands-off approach when it came to shaping the production in its early days.

"I had to give up when I'd walk into rehearsal," he says. "In the back of my mind, I might be saying, 'No, not like that,' but in the front of my mind, I'm saying 'Walk away.' "

After the initial direction, the creativity was turned over to people such as Les Caulfield, whose rod puppets, inspired by a trip to Asia, are controlled by the chorus; Kevin Becker, who developed the drumming and chanting based on the principles of the minimalism movement in music; and choreographer Anna Demers, who, with the actors in the chorus, created the movement.

"John gave me a couple of plot points, things he wanted me to work on in terms of progressing the story and then he said, 'Go for it,' " Demers says. "It allows me the freedom to set what I think works, then tweak as we went along, which is really positive for me."

"He [John] left it up to exploring," Becker says. "As we got farther and farther into the process, he would step in more. That really was neat when he stepped in. It was like 'Yeah, it's starting to take shape and find its own identity.' "

It's an identity that is purposefully different from the traditional view of Oedipus .

"I didn't want to approach the play from the same perspective. I wanted to do it from a different perspective," DiDonna says.

Inspired by a passion for the play and influenced by the work of Julie Taymor (the director-designer who did Broadway's The Lion King ), primitive culture and tribal liturgy, DiDonna tried a different approach in adapting Sophocles. Instead of a literal translation, he pared the play to its bones. The choral odes, for example, were reworked into only their most essential parts.

"There are pieces and parts [of the original], the most evocative pieces and parts," he says.

The production evolved throughout rehearsals. Even as the opening date approached, there were tweaks and additions: blocking had to be refined, lines had to be learned, costumes had to be fitted. At a recent rehearsal, there is something besides the press of deadline in the air.

"I'm excited," DiDonna says as he watches the chorus run through one more scene.

"I can't wait . . . to see all the elements jell. It's all about putting elements together."

The final version of this collective vision is about to come together after months of work. The varied threads from the actors and from Demers, Caulfield, Becker, DiDonna, Kubersky and others behind the scenes will finally be woven together and form the complete tapestry . . . a new kind of Oedipus .

Ink19 Archikulture Digest
by Carl F. Gauze
Number 46 - April 2005 Edition

Oedipus the King
By Sophocles
Adapted By John DiDonna
Directed by John DiDonna and Seth Kubersky
Starring Christian Kelty, Avis Marie Barnes, Jeff Lindberg
Empty Spaces Theater Company, Studio Theater Courtyard Orlando Fla

Last month I saw Molière on a trampoline, and this month we have Oedipus on Survivor Island. While purist may cringe, this lively and sexy romp though one of the greatest tragedies of Greece fills the smoky, dusty Studio Theater Courtyard. A few yard of sand and some Amdro set the stage for the skimpily dressed chorus, smeared with paint and symbols of a dozen cultures. All wear grass anklets and arm bands, and the principals dress in cast off furs and Egyptian face paint. A set of drummers makes a jungle rhythm and you feel your not in Greece or UCF but in a lost land with no cell phones and no credit cards and no way to flip the channel. AND you get a comfy directors chair to sit in!

You may recall the story - when Oedipus was born, the oracles predicts he will kill his father. The child is mutilated and abandoned in the mountains, only to be recovers and sent to Corinth by kindly shepherds. There he becomes heir to the Corinthian throne, and returns to Thebes and semi -accidentally fulfills the prophecy, causing famine and plague on his countrymen. The Gods have only one solution for this sin - exile or death. Go figure.

As the story unfolds, the chorus swarms the audience and players, alternately cowering and bullying, and often resorting to puppets to play the crowd of Thebes. At the height of the show, Oedipus (DiDonna) and Creon (Kelty) rise up on the backs of this ragtag chorus to argue 8 feet in the sky, floating as robots in an Anime film. Grit and dirt cover everything, and a rain day would turn this show in to a mud wrestling orgy. Hmmm.Oedipus In Mud.it COULD work!

All in all, this is one of the coolest theatric events I've ever seen, partly because of the skill in adapting and staging, and partly because it's so unexpected. Like Blair Witch, I doubt anyone could pull this off again, but I highly recommended putting on some old clothes and tramping down to see it.

For more information on Empty Spaces Theater Company, visit www.emptyspacestheatre.org