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Article: Many a man's mad dream
- Article from:
- New Statesman
- Article date:
- November 3, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright New Statesman Ltd. Nov 3, 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Ralph Fiennes is magnificent as the doomed king, but only in despair
Oedipus
Olivier Theatre, London SE1
Problems besiege any production of the west's best known tragedy. Oedipus Rex is static, its terrible acts of violence happening either offstage, in the past, or in reported speech (a movie director would be using flashbacks all over the place). Its dialogue, even in a translation as accessible as this new one by Frank McGuinness, is non-naturalistic: characters declaim to us as much as they talk to one another. And it lacks that oil of all drama, humour. I counted just one laugh in the 100 minutes of Jonathan Kent's production: Oedipus tells the annoyingly opaque truth-teller, ...