*Oedipus,* Jan 7 2026

Claudia and I saw Oedipus on Broadway on Jan 7, 2026. 

It's a production from London's West End that was brought over to the Roundabout Theatre at Studio 54. I was interested because it was starring two actors who I like a lot, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. I know Strong from the Kingsman movies and from doing A View From the Bridge on Broadway in 2015. I first noticed Manville in her seismic performance in Phantom Thread, have seen her in many other movies and TV shows, and saw her in two plays at BAM - - Ghosts (2015) and Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018).

They were both amazing but it was the writing that was the star of the show. It was a new adaptation by Robert Icke after the Sophocles play (he also directed). He set it in the London of today and had Oedipus be someone running for prime minister. The play takes place the night that the election results are coming in. It opened with a film of Oedipus addressing his supporters and the press. He said that his opponent had made allegations about his provenance, whether or not he was really one of the people. Oedipus announced that he would respond to this by releasing his birth certificate at the end of the night. This was the first gasp of the night, in a night full of gasps. Icke did an extraordinary job of staying faithful to the Sophocles original but making it relevant to a contemporary audience.

I was expecting the play to be good but I wasn't expecting it to be so exciting. Part of the drive of the show was furnished by a countdown clock at the back of the stage, starting at an hour and forty minutes, ticking down the seconds until we would all know the results of the election. Of course Oedipus and his wife Jocasta don't know that the true revelation of the evening will be about themselves.

Over and over again Icke planted little bombs, a secret that will be told. A big one happened early in the show when Oedipus's mother - - well, the woman who raised him, the woman he believes to be his mother - - shows up unannounced and says she has something important she needs to tell him. We all know what she's going to say but he doesn't and he keeps putting her off. I kept watching the clock, thinking, "There's only an hour left!" "There's only 45 minutes left!" Et cetera. The play had a constantly deepening sense of dread, amplifying the drama and heightening the tension. The final moments, when the countdown clock finally hit zero and Oedipus and Jocasta were alone onstage finally realizing the truth of their relationship - - it was quiet and chilling and incredibly powerful.

Strong and Manville were both extraordinary. He was fantastic at putting across the slick, polished surface of a man in power, a man in control. We know that veneer will be chipped away but he doesn't know it. That's theatrical gold. Manville conveyed all of the complexity of her character and the dilemma of a woman married to a leader, supporting him, being the power behind the throne but never stepping in front of him.

I want to mention two supporting performances. John Carroll Lynch made his New York stage debut in this show as Creon, Jocasta's brother and the man running Oedipus's campaign. I know him from having played Marge's husband in Fargo. He was fantastic as the guy who's never appreciated and always blamed for problems. Anne Reid played Oedipus's mother (again, the woman who raised him). She looked vaguely familiar to me but Claudia recognized her from lots of BBC shows (*Sandition,* Last Tango in Halifax, etc). She did a great job of holding the stage in a quiet way, never intentionally drawing focus but being a looming presence. Even when she was offstage, which is a pretty cool trick!