Oedipus (Wyndhams Theatre, London)
Verdict: success and myth
The Duchess (Malfi) (Trafalgar Theatre, London)
Verdict: Damn!
Suddenly, incest is all the rage in the West End. This week alone there are two striking examples. One stars Mark Strong and Leslie Manville in a retelling of the king of Thebes, Oedipus, who kills his father and loves his mother.
The other sees former Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker in a misguided reimagining of John Webster's brutal Jacobean tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, in which the eponymous duchess is sexually assaulted by her twin brother.
Both come hot on the heels of Alexander Seldin's modern version of the story of Antigone, Oedipus's daughter, The Other Place, which premiered at the National Theater last week.
First, Oedipus. The problem with the reinvention of Robert Icke is that it turns the great man into a Westminster politician and requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Togas will not go with a suit. An intelligent modern world where no one has heard of the Oedipus myth is for the birds.
Mark Strong and Leslie Manville in Oedipus at the Wyndham's Theater in London
Manville and Strong attend a press night on October 15. When they are alone, they are exciting. According to his suit, Strong no longer bores everyone with his thoughts on authority, fatherhood, and personal morality.
This prime minister-in-waiting, whom we meet on videotaped election campaigns spouting incoherent platitudes, uninterrupted by hackers and reverent supporters, should impress us. Campaigning on a “change” note, he is as bland and withdrawn as his M&S suit.
The original by Sophocles, penetrating like a bad smell. Blind prophet Tiresias (Samuel Brewer) laments “prophecies” like a bum in a propaganda office. Surely he must be paranoid and the police know it.
And should Oedipus' children, including the great moralist Antigone, be reduced to adolescent clichés? But if ancient and modern go together like the horse and marriage, the story ultimately functions as a portrait of marital decline.
When they're alone, Strong and Manville are busiest. According to his suit, Strong no longer bores anyone with his thoughts on authority, fatherhood, and personal morality.
And Manville reveals her dignity in the shock of discovering that she is the wife and mother of Oedipus. Her account of her abusive relationship with her deceased first husband (Oedipus's father) chills Gothic blood. But she still remembers that she gave birth to her son when she was 13 years old.
All this is complicated by the clear feeling of the couple's mutual sexual appetite. They make a formidable pair, plumbing the depths of a sobering message from time immemorial. Strong's gaze, frozen with fear as he hears the story of his origins, is more easily forgotten than Manville's primal scream or his skin crawling with self-loathing.
As representatives of our times, Icke's writings make them both feel like unremarkable activists. However, Strong and Manville's legacy will ensure the show is a box office success.
The Duchess (of Malfi) is a different kettle of fish that could have been better titled Doctor Who and the Borgias.
In Ginny Harris's bleak 2019 interpretation of Webster's misogynistic tragedy, Whittaker's vapid Duchess is captured and murdered by her brothers. I've always had a hard time understanding the plot, but because of this, I wish I hadn't.
Duchess (of Malfi). Jodie Whittaker stars in a misguided reworking of John Webster's somber Jacobean tragedy
The incest angle is a torch carried to the Duchess by her twin, Ferdinand (Rory Fleck Byrne). He incites a bloodbath and even takes down his sinister Catholic cardinal brother (Paul Ready).
Why Whittaker accepted the role is a mystery. Maybe she wanted to put the stars between her and Doctor Who. But, ironically, Tom Piper's set looks like a 1960s black-and-white television studio with an elevated catwalk.
In Harris's main production, Joel Fry is as dim-witted and inexplicable as his dim-witted, grumpy maid. I couldn't get out fast enough. Where's a Dalek when you need one?
Oedipus accepts reservations until January 4. La Duchess (of Malfi) will be open until December 20.
