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Thursday 25 November 2010

Recent reads: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

Re-read Oedipus Rex by Sophocles recently.  One of the good things about my "day job" is that I'm obliged to revisit a variety of texts and look at them afresh each time.  This time I was quite taken by the final speech of the play where, after everything poor old Oedipus has been through, the audience is told that none of us can ever really know whether we've been destined to enjoy a happy or a tragic life until the moment we're facing imminent death.  It's a bleak message to end the drama, but certainly carries a punch.

Also took the opportunity to revisit one of my favourite mash-ups of Oedipus Rex, where the story is acted out by fruit and veg.  (I've probably drawn attention to it before, but it's worth it.)  Watch out for that sexy tomato!  And as for those potato peelers...

3 comments:

Jane Turley said...

I loved that vegetable film! What a brillant educational tool as well. It brought all my thespian days back to me though - I once played Antigone in our sixthform prodution of Jean Anouilh's dramatisation. Those were the days when then the stage beckoned and before I took the sensible route:)

Paul Burman said...

Were you dressed as a cherry tomato?!
Did your fellow thespians wish you luck by saying, "Break a stalk," before you went on stage?

Curses to all those sensible routes!!

Jane Turley said...

No, I wasn't! Although I admit dressing as a cherry tomato does have a certain appeal:)

I should have been a thespian of that I'm sure... writing is just an extension of that creative impulse:)

Curses indeed!