Oedipus The Visionary

by David Greig

East 15 MFA International Course, 2022

I had the pleasure of returning to this wonderful poetic text by David Greig with students on the MFA International course at East 15. An adaptation of The Oedipus story, it is a fast moving, contemporary text which is a gift to actors. It is so beautifully and concisely written that if the actors simply surrender to it, the text can carry them along without them having to ponder too deeply about character and narrative. I asked the actors to yield to the text and in so doing hear the inherent rhythms and musicality in the words. Without putting their own interpretations and rhythms on the text, I asked them first to listen deeply and see what they could hear in what was already written. It was a liberating process. The international student group meant we had many languages and vernaculars in the rehearsal room . In process we worked with Swiss German, Romanian, Hungarian, Dutch and English and a range of American vernaculars. The final performances were spoken in English but with the cultural narratives of all the actors under pinning the work.