You want to see something that’s really…hot? On a stage in L.A.?
Check out the first meeting of Oedipus (Justin Huen) and Jocasta (Marlene Forte) in Luis Alfaro’s new Oedipus El Rey, at the Boston Court. The sexual electricidad ignites the room.
Emphasizing that aspect of the production in a marketing campaign might sound, well, crass or sophomoric - sort of like those written come-ons that start with a bold-faced “SEX,” and then proceed with “Now that I have your attention…”
Yet such an emphasis would hardly be gratuitous in this case. One of the strengths of this Oedipus, in contrast to Sophocles’ original, is that it unequivocally demonstrates the source of the two lovers’ sexual connection. Of course, this is long before they discover - I’m assuming that no spoiler alert is necessary - that they’re not just your average younger man and older woman. They’re son and mother.
They remove all their clothes by the end of the scene. But the dialogue that leads up to it - in which they transcend initial suspicion to discover a common yearning that goes far beyond the physical - is as incendiary as the nudity.
Most of this scene works like wildfire. But I was confused by one odd exchange, early in the scene. Discussing their respective names, they send mixed signals as to whether they have any familiarity with the original oedipal story. I wasn’t sure what Alfaro was trying to establish with these lines.
Justin Huen and Marlene Forte in OEDIPUS EL REY
Generally, however, his intentions in Oedipus El Rey are clear. By plopping the narrative down in the barrios of contemporary California, he’s giving the musty saga a new lease on life for his immediate audience.
At first I wondered why Alfaro places young Oedipus and, in this version, his adoptive father Tiresias, in prison - North Kern State Prison. This Oedipus has been in and out of Youth Authority facilities and then prison for much of his life.
By the end of the play, however, I realized that Alfaro sees a prisoner’s relationship with his keepers as a metaphor for Sophocles’ generally despairing concept of the relationship between human beings and the gods.
After Oedipus has been out of prison for awhile, creating his own “kingdom” as a wheeler-dealer on the streets of Pico-Union, he returns to visit Tiresias in prison, hoping to get some answers to the big questions that now plague him. He declares he will break any divine curse. When Tiresias declares it isn’t possible to defy the gods, Oedipus replies, “Not in here, Papa, but out there…,” referring to life beyond the prison walls.
Tiresias answers: “My son, don’t you see? In here is out there.” No matter where he is, Oedipus’ burning desire to build his own kingdom is constricted by factors over which he has no control. Alfaro brilliantly honors the essence of Sophocles’ world view, even as he changes so many of the details.
Alfaro adapted another tale of classic Greek drama, Electra, to contemporary L.A. in Electricidad, at the Mark Taper Forum in 2005. It was exciting, but some nay-sayers felt that it was diluted by too many flip laugh lines. I doubt they would feel that way about Oedipus El Rey. It’s sleek and streamlined. Although some allusions to contemporary L.A. and the 21st century are passingly amusing in this context, they don’t sound as if they were designed to break up the somber mood, as a few of the lines in Electricidad did.
The connection between the two plays is strong. In Electricidad, a member of the chorus dismisses L.A.’s barrios as “border towns.” In Oedipus El Rey, Jocasta tells Oedipus, in an attempt to tamp down his ambitions, “we’re border people.” A few minutes later, she repeats a variation of the phrase, referring to Pico-Union with “This ain’t downtown - it’s the borderlands.”
She explains: “We’re the stuff under the cement…In this barrio - we still lay hands and kill chickens and go to church and do what the shaman says. Look at the way we look, like our ancestors. We haven’t changed…This is the way we live. You might think you have the power to make the world you want to make, but there’s someone upstairs pulling your strings.”
Soon after she speaks these words, however, Oedipus begins to transform her from a fatalist into a dreamer. It’s a beautiful vision - but it can’t last.
Or could it? In Greek, Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of the same Oedipus story to lower-class London in the ’80s, he suggests that modern human beings aren’t necessarily bound by all the old-fashioned rules, that Oedipus and Jocasta might have a future together, even knowing what they know.
If I had a magical producer’s wand, I’d re-assemble L.A. Theatre Works’ 1982 production of Greek (originally at the Matrix Theatre) in a festival along with Oedipus El Rey. Then I’d throw in a traditional interpretation of the story - say, A Noise Within’s 1999 production of Kenneth Cavander’s translation of Sophocles’ original. And I’d add Neil LaBute’s Wrecks, seen at the Geffen Playhouse with Ed Harris a few weeks ago.
It would be thrilling to see all of these productions side by side, having a conversation with each other.
Failing that possibility, at least you still have time to see Jon Lawrence Rivera’s dynamic staging of Oedipus El Rey at the Boston Court. It’s part two of a rolling three-part premiere that began last month at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco and will continue to a production at the Woolly Mammoth in Washington. Alfaro is making a few changes along the way, and the casts are different. Here in L.A., for those of us who saw Electricidad, the casting provides an additional line of continuity between the earlier play and this one. Hue, who played Orestes in 2005, is now playing Oedipus. Winston Rocha, who played Orestes’ godfather and mentor at the Taper, is now playing Tiresias.
Of course, in an ideal world, Oedipus El Rey itself would be at the Taper or at least the Taper’s sister CTG theater, the Kirk Douglas. That way, everyone would get wages commensurate for their talent and skills and hard work, and the larger CTG audience would be able to track Alfaro’s work from 2005 until now. However, as I’ve noted here, CTG appears to have lost interest in producing locally-set plays by local playwrights. CTG’s loss is the Boston Court’s gain.
Oedipus El Rey, Boston Court Performing Arts Center, 70 N. Mentor, Pasadena. Thur-Sat, 8 pm; Sun, 2 pm. Closes March 28. 626-683-6883. www.bostoncourt.org.
Meanwhile, in Forgiveness at the Black Dahlia, the perils of another inappropriate parent-child relationship take center stage - but this time it’s a father (Morlan Higgins) and a daughter (Emily Bergl).
Peter Smith and Emily Bergl in Forgiveness
David Schulner’s play lacks the vibrant theatricality and mythological resonance of Alfaro’s, but it substitutes a small-scale realism to address this sad case. The father raped his teenage daughter years ago, went to prison, stopped drinking, found Jesus, remarried - but still lives in a world of regret. The daughter, now in her early 30s, has apparently forgiven her father. She wants to introduce her fiancé (Peter Smith) to him and to her stepmother (Lee Garlington) and teenaged stepsister (Kendall Toole), although she doesn’t inform her fiancé of the backstory until they’re practically at the father’s doorstep. The arrival of the newcomer, who must absorb all this history in one weekend, sets off dangerous reminders of the bad old days.
Matt Shakman’s staging is packed with telling nuances. It’s the kind of script that might be easily adapted into an indie film. I got a charge out of watching it up-close and personal in the tiny Dahlia space on the same night that nearly everyone else was watching the Oscar ceremony.
Forgiveness, Black Dahlia Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. Thur-Sun, 8 pm. Closes March 28. 800-838-3006. thedahlia.com.
