Ovation Fellows are current students or recent alumni from Los Angeles area universities. Fellows are paired with a Mentor, currently serving as an Ovation Award voter, and see productions and meet artists around Greater Los Angeles throughout the year. Their articles, posted on LAStageBlog, are intended to be their personal responses to their experiences, and not as critical reviews or representing the views of LA Stage Alliance.
Christopher Johnson is an Ovation Fellow from the Azusa Pacific University.
In my opinion, one of the biggest reasons people get disengaged from classical plays is because they lose the application element within the artwork. Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” or Julius Caesar’s “et tu brute” have become familiar phrases with an absence of true meaning. However, Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey revealed a fresh perspective on the life of Oedipus by placing it in modern day Los Angeles as he is getting released from prison. Although I entered the theater with a few reservations concerning this new adaptation, I left speechless while pondering the new themes and other production elements that sustained my attention throughout the play.
I found it intriguing to see how Alfaro brought out certain themes within the text and further investigated them through the characters. I’ve studied Oedipus many times throughout my undergraduate years but I never truly grasped how essential faith is to this text. Throughout the play, the audience sees Oedipus’ struggle with faith and pride in the midst of turmoil. Ultimately, his efforts of holding onto his power with empty proclaims of his might reveal his destined failure.
As the play progresses the audience witnesses how faith is so closely related to one’s destiny. In this case, Oedipus’ denial of faith ironically led to his destiny which was decided through faith. Even though he desperately attempts to alter his destiny, he tragically comes to terms with it.
Even in current day Los Angeles, this story still has an impact on society. It leaves the audience members questioning the validity of faith, destiny and relationships in life. This adaptation of Oedipus taught me the importance of seeking and the dangers of pride.
The fact the story takes place in Los Angeles creates a familiar atmosphere for the audience member, and it compels him or her to be more engaged with the characters as they face similar issues people struggle with today (except for the whole incest part). In this way, this adaptation is a powerful piece for present day because it takes the story of Oedipus and reconnects its audience with the rooted meanings that Sophocles originally conveyed to his audiences.
