Actor Paul Robertson is well known for this ability to breathe life into Greek and Shakespearean characters – big characters, flawed characters, weighed down by pathos, rage, jealousy, vanity – architects of their own demise and of those around them.
Robertson now is Oedipus the King in a unique concept theatre workshop devised by James Adler. Oedipus Y X, directed by Dr Robert Reid also features Helene Tardif (Jocasta, chorus), Pat Dare (Creon, the Shepherd, chorus) and Phil Roberts (Tiresias, the Messenger from Corinth, chorus) with music by Damian Pitcon.
Oedipus Rex, in Greek Oedipus Tyrannus, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 BC.
Neos Kosmos talked to Roberson about the king who kills his father and marries his mother (unbeknownst to him), and when he does find out, he blinds himself.
The unnatural act brings disaster to Thebes and Oedipus’s family.
“Oedipus is a play about the human capacity to ignore evidence and pretend disasters are not on the horizon.”
“It is about government inaction on a curse that everyone can see the effects of but cannot agree on to fix,” Robertson says.
There are contemporary lessons in Sophocles’ tragedy, particularly as Oedipus Tyrannus, who took the citizens of Thebes for a ride.
“I feel that most Trump followers are innocently misled—the echo chamber around them has led to beliefs that are sincere yet so divorced from reality that from the outside, they are incomprehensible, and when they end in harm, it genuinely seems that some universal restitution has occurred,” Robertson says.
Oedipus is symbolic now as much as it was 2000 years ago when Sophocles warned the people of Athens about tyrants and populists. Roberson is adept at breathing life into “larger-than-life characters.” Robertson is a rare breed nowadays, “a text lead actor”.
“The circumstances may be extreme enough to produce extremely emotion-ridden performances, but the people seem real to me as I engage with the text,” he explains.
Robertson dives in deep—he immerses himself in the character and says the “quality and complexity of the text involved is a huge driver for me.”
“Enormous emotion grows from authentic engagement with huge ideas and evocative, intricate phrasing.”
Trump is possibly Oedipus of our time, a “man of enormous flaws, ego and hubris who everyone, except his followers, want to see come to a bad end”, says Robertson.
The Thebans, like Trump followers, have invested in Trump and are “actively blinding themselves to the truth and doubling down on following those of bad faith”.
The innovative production has the chorus on mobile phones who “document, distribute, and distance themselves from the tragedies of both the plague and the person of Oedipus”.
These programs are designed to make Greek theatre accessible and ideal for all. The session includes a one-hour performance with a ‘script-in-hand’ style performance as well as an interactive workshop with actors. Audience members will get the opportunity to contribute to the creation and direction of the work and discuss and debate concepts and practice.
When: Saturday, 3 August 2024, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Where: The Tower Room 113 Sturt St, Southbank
