Oedipus Rex (dir.
Tyrone Guthrie, 1957), a filmed staged performance of Sophocles’ 5
th-century
tragedy based upon an adapted translation by W.B. Yeats
—OGCMA0757NOTOedipus_SophoclesGuthrie
Howler Alert: Don’t trust the labels on Netflix discjackets:
“Acclaimed actor-director Sir Tyrone Guthrie filmed this 1957 masterpiece
production of Sophocles’s beloved Greek tragedy. Just as the ancient Greeks performed
it, the actors here also wear masks, which add a classic touch. Oedipus Rex,
the story of a Greek man who killed his father so he could marry his mother and
quench his primal sexual thirst, has for centuries influenced countless plays
and films.” … Really?
 |
Tyrone Guthrie's production of Oedipus Rex landmarked
the beginning of revivals of Greek tragedies in North America. |
Sophocles’ “beloved”
Greek tragedy? Could they mean beloved like chocolate ice cream or Maria Von Trapp? Who writes this stuff?!? But then this: … Oedipus’ purpose for killing Laius was to
bed his mother? C’mon! If ever a 20th-century reading could be
planted upon a classical narrative, this label defines the attempt. Fortunately, it turns out, that back-formed reading of Oedipus goes no deeper than the label; and the content of this disc deserves a good close watching. But you'll need to be patient if you want to benefit.
Nothing seems really further from this production’s primary
purpose than proving the Oedipus was driven by incestuous lust when he killed
his real father. For the production’s prologue, delivered for the film audience
by an actor who is overtly going to assume a mask and persona for the play,
clarifies that we are about to participate in a sacramental experience. This Oedipus is going to present a “sacrifice
of one man who died for the people, … the destruction of one man that his
people might live.” To be sure, the purpose of Guthrie’s undertaking is present
a ritualized drama, conceived and produced for the ennobling of the audience. Crafted
in the shadow of the Cambridge Ritualists, Guthrie’s Sophocles is all about
lionizing the Theban King’s selfless self-sacrifice to the god Apollo.
Analogue of Sophocles’ masterpiece, the filmed drama renders
onto a stage the translation of W. B. Yeats. The production has the self-conscious
air of monumentality. And, indeed, it is the filmed version of a stageplay that
was the highlight of the 1955 Stratford, Ontario New Shakespeare Festival. The
director, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, first projected the event as a minor feature;
but, it became the Festival’s smash hit.
The actors of the Stratford (Shakespearean) Festival recreate
for the cameras on a soundstage a And the play remains to be the
thing.
production of the classic drama. Set upon a
multifaceted stage and shot from several camera angles as if in the round, this
performance features actors in highly stylized masks and costumes. One or two
cuts reveal, as if accidentally, that the analogue was not actually shot in one
take. Dozens of quick cuts keep the viewer’s eye from tiring. High-angle shots
and occasional close-ups instruct the viewer that the director, not the
beholder, is in charge here. Still, the cinematic illusion leads the film’s
viewer to believe in the analogue of a dramatic performance. The simple
backdrop shows that the soundstage where this is filmed is of no great physical
scope.
Yeats’ translation flows easily, even if it is overwhelmed
in most deliveries here by the overwheening acting. The text is trimmed down
somewhat, to the point that many favorite passages are tiny or non-extant.
Creon, for instance (in my favorite speech), never gets to ask Oedipus why a
second-in-power would really want to overthrow his king. Elsewhere, the Chorus
adds background that Sophocles’ audience had no need of hearing (the opening
choral “ode”). What the translator, however, does achieve is a composed
heroization of the Greek hero, “a conception of an Oedipus who has achieved
mythopoeic status”. (Macintosh, 310) Guthrie siezes upon that notion and tries
to edify it.
21st century cinema audiences will be put off by
the highly stylized acting. Blocking is dramatic to the extreme and often overwrought.
Douglas Campbell as Oedipius pauses pregnantly each time Laius’ name is
mentioned or considered. This notwithstanding, the text is very easy to follow.
Indeed, what I criticize in the acting is actually pronounced to the clarity of
the plot. Even a contemporary reviewer, not jaded by my generation’s need for
visual thrills, notes that “As pure film [Guthrie’s Oedipus] has gaping flaws
that are definitely distracting.” This is not really a film, but a stage play.
Nor is it a play done as current audiences are accustomed to seeing, rather in
many ways an overtly ritualized performance.
I wonder whether I am the only viewer who is disappointed by the remarkable lack of "chemistry" between Jocasta and Oedipus in this production. The 2013 OT by the Utah Classical Greek Theatre foregrounded an affectionate wife pleading to halt the inquest. And I come to Guthrie's masked Jocasta fresh from deep viewings of Martha Graham's Night Journey and the erotically supercharged Edipo Alcalde in which Ángela Molina moves Jocasta into entirely new territory. Guthrie's production reminds me that for many generations, Oedipus' plight is all about him. Sophocles can really wrench your gut by delving into the mother's view — Remember that Eurydice in Antigone is also undone, not just Creon, by Haemon's grief. The pesky masking of the present Oedipus obfuscates, for me, the tragedy of Jocasta at a time in my life when I'm beginning to look for it more.
Those who have grown up with the cinematic flexibilities of CGI
and FX or the like will grow impatient with this production. All the dialogue
comes from actors whose entire faces, except for the chin, are covered by
depersonalized masks. Of course, our age would scarcely tolerate a messenger’s
speech in any context. Sophocles’ audience expected otherwise. “You shall see
it!” responds the messenger when the Chorus asks him to describe Jocasta’s
death. This moment cannot but remind us that we will see nothing but the words of the messenger. Would a really modern production not actually
impose this gruesome scene upon us? 5th-century staging forebade the
playwright from forcing such upon the audience.
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Oedipus thinks himself at the top of his game while he brow-
beats the prophetically nimble Tiresias. The avian costume is discomfiting. |
Oedipus’ final blinding is tame and heroically discreet. Though
the Messenger reports that “The blood poured down, and not with a few slow
drops… in a dark cataract of scarlet!” when Guthrie’s Oedipus comes forth from
the shadowy doorway, he is clothed in scarlet, not gold; bereft of the golden
crown. Benighted now in a black veil, the final Oedipus is less physically
anguished and more composed than other Oedipuses at this moment.This uncommonly restrained moment sows insightful understanding of Oedipus' grandest accomplishment, the clarity of vision he has striven for throughout his existence as demonstrated within the play. Bereft of all he has held dear, he can now appreciate illumination. This QED rewards the viewer who has tended through the production's discomfiting oddities.
I feel fortunate that I watched this film in solitude. Glad
that I did not watch with teenagers, especially Oedipus’ interrogation of Tiresias.
There would certainly have been lots of uncomfortable laughing. Later, Oedipus’ rehearsal of his violent
encounter with Laius is stirringly overwrought. The dramatic moments in this
production involve histrionic gestures of lifted arms. Tiresias, the blind seer,
is a walking characture. His costuming seems ripped from the pages of Mad
Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy, or awfully
like a marshmallow dripping into a campfire.
Guthrie is said to have regarded acting as a product of
conscious style:
“Style is an alarming word
to American actors. They think of it as something assumed, something fancy and
affected, something connected with being more elegant and flossy than anyone
has a right to be in private life.It is hard to convince them that style in
acting, as in dress, is concerned with appropriateness, with suitability to
environment, and does not necessarily involve a great deal of elaborate
mannerisms and posturing.” (IMDB.com provides no detail for this reference.)
Viewers who can suspend their naturally acquired tastes and invest in Guthrie's production will benefit from watching
this rather clearly presented narrative of the western literature’s most humane
hero, the ill-starred savior of Thebes.
___________________
RTM
Directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie the year after winning 1956
Tony for directing Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker”.
IMDB provides links to these and other contemporary reviews:
See also
Fiona Macintosh, “Tragedy in Performance: nineteenth- and
twentieth-century productions,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, ed. by P.E. Easterling (Cambridge UP,
1997): 284 – 323.
...But save for her treatment of other receptions M. McDonald, The Living Art of Greek Tragedy (Indiana UP, 2003): 95.
