San Antonio College Library

This play recounts the story of Oedipus, King of Thebes, a man, who out of stubborn pride, must know the truth at all costs.

Bearer of an almost unspeakable, immutable fate, Oedipus yet feels himself a man chosen--that is, favored--by the gods. Now an old man, blind and outcast, Oedipus wanders through Greece guided by his daughter Antigone until he comes to Colonus, where he knows he will die. This second play of the Oedipus saga finds Oedipus railing against the indignities of old age, possibly reflecting the authors own sentiments, as Sophocles was nearly 90 at the time...

Join us for a staging of Peter Arnott's translation of Sophocles' masterpiece Oedipus Rex aka Oedipus Tyrannus or simple Oedipus. Set in a time of plague, the hero who solved the riddle of the sphinx, is now King of Thebes and is about to go on another riddle quest to uncover the source of his city's pollution. Peter's line-by-line translation, complete with all the chorus odes, gives the fullest exposure to this conundrum riddle of a play a masterpiece...

"The noted novelist Anthony Burgess has provided, in this translation and adaptation of the Greek classic, a highly dramatic and forceful piece of work, one which is theatrically effective for present-day audiences. It is the version on which was based a major production by the Guthrie Theater Company under the direction of Michael Langham at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The dialogue, though modern, conveys the feeling of the ancient period....

Sophocles often won the leading prize at the Dionysia, the principal dramatic festival of Athens; but Oedipus the King was a runner-up, winner of the second prize. Posterity, however, considers the play second to none. The play tells the beginning of the Oedipus saga, setting the stage and creating the characters who will continue the story to its conclusion in Antigone. With Michael Pennington, John Gielgud, and Claire Bloom.

"Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, influencing a vast array of artists and thinkers over the centuries. Disturbing and unrelenting, his tragedies portray what Matthew Arnold referred to as 'the turbid ebb and flow of human misery', allowing the audience to stand on the verge of the abyss and confront the waste and disorder of human existence. The heroic myths reinterpreted in the plays locate them within a world in which...