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I’m looking at Oedipus again. This time it’s for a screenplay that I’m mulling over… have been mulling for some time.

I’ve read the play many, many times with many different translations, but the most recent by Robert Fagles (Three Theban Plays) is by far the most interesting. The introduction to the play he provides is not only illuminating, but it has had immediate repercussions to things that I’ve been considering.

The most interesting topic that Fagles brings up, IMO, is the importance of the time period in which Sophocles was writing. According to Fagles,

So far as the action is concerned, it is the most relentlessly secular of the Sophoclean tragedies. Destiny, fate and the will of the gods do indeed loom ominously behind the human action, but that action, far from suggesting primeval rituals and satanic divinities, reflects, at every point, contemporary realities familiar to the audience that first saw the play. 134

This is of very great interest to me. Again, as I’m writing a screenplay based on Oedipus the notion of how Sophocles made the story interesting to his own audience at his particular point in time is a central concern that I face.

Fagles also notes that there has been a tendency, in our time, to romanticize the religious aspects of Greek life, pointing directly to WB Yeats, who “conjure[d] up mystic romantic visions” but was “for Sophocles and his audience, a fact of life, an institution as present and solid, as uncompromising (and sometimes infuriating) as the Vatican is for us.” 135 This too is critical, pointing to the realities of life in 5th century Greece. The Oracle was no romantic force, steeped in mystery and incense and cloaked in the wonders of the Order of the Golden Dawn. It was a source of frustration and power and something that had to be paid off or cajoled or catered to. It’s religious grip was stubborn, as was its power over the masses who adhered to it’s pronouncements and had to be pacified when decisions were made. No greater demonstration is necessary of the power that a religious institution can leverage than the very institution to which Fagles points: the Catholic Church. Today, for instance, much has been made of Obama speaking at Notre Dame, and provides concrete example of the power that the Catholic Church can mobilize against a leader—if not the media itself, which has been drooling over this ‘event.’

Similar to our own time, belief itself was under attack. Fagles points clearly to the tension that existed at the time Sophocles wrote Oedipus surrounding prophecy and belief. Some believed in prophecy, the gods, and their ability to see the future. No where is this tension better expressed than in the play itself. Tiresias, who in the end proves to be the true seer, versus Jocasta, who offers nothing but disdain for prophets and her own hypocrisy of ‘enacted’ religious offerings. As Fagles puts it, “prophecy was one of the great controversial questions of the day.” 137 Today, similar questions abound, with often surprising results reported in surveys that show Americans resounding belief in God, and yet fewer and fewer Americans seem to demonstrate said belief in the way they live their lives. Very like Jocasta there is a disconnect between what is said and what is practiced.

More interesting to me, perhaps is the general environment of 5th century Athens, which Fagles describes as “an age of intellectual revolution,” one that lent itself to challenging received belief and casting “scorn” on the practices of the past—such as “self-appointed professional seers.” 136 This time period might be compared to the rise of medicine in nineteenth and twentieth century America and the rejection of “quacks” or those who postured as medical doctors but were not certified or approved by the traditional establishment—such that as it was at the time. This notion that Fagles points to of an intellectual revolution combined with other aspects of the Athenian character to produce an “ideal man,” which is what Oedipus represents. Such characteristics include:

• Belief in self-made destiny—self-made man;
• Contemporary language (not mythic);
• Man of action—a will to action;
• Experience—which, as Fagles points out, is the result of action
• Courage
• Desire to know the truth
• Anticipation—action based on reflection (i.e. not rash action)
• Adaptability
• Dedication to the interests of his city; public spirit; statesman
• Creative vigor and intellectual daring
• Investigator, prosecutor, and judge
• Questioner, researcher, discoverer
• Calculator, physician
• Belief in individual responsibility

What Fagles describes is that Athenians:

Could have seen in Oedipus a man endowed with the temperament and talents they prized most highly in their own democratic leaders and their ideal vision of themselves. Oedipus the King is a dramatic embodiment of the creative vigor and intellectual daring of the fifth-century Athenian spirit… The fifth century in Athens saw the birth of the historic spirit; the human race awakened for the first time to consciousness of its past and a tentative confidence in its future. The past came to be seen no longer as a golden age from which there had been a decline if not a fall, but as a steady progress from primitive barbarism to the high civilization of the city state. 140

As such, much of what Oedipus says in his speeches reflect this: as Fagles writes, “[Oedipus’] speeches are full of words, phrases and attitudes that link him with the ‘enlightenment’ of Sophocles’ own Athens. ‘I’ll bring it all to light,’ he says.” 142

Above all Oedipus is presented…as a symbol of two of the greatest scientific achievements of the age—mathematics and medicine. Mathematical language recurs incessantly in the imagery of the play—such terms as measure, equate, define…and the mathematical axiom: “One can’t equal many.”

As well, in the play “the city suffers from a disease, and Oedipus is the physician to whom all turn for a cure. ‘After a painful search I found one cure; / I acted at once.’” 142

This leads Fagles to a dramatic point, that the fate of Oedipus, is the fate of Athens.

The catastrophe of the tragic hero thus becomes the catastrophe of fifth-century man; all his furious energy and intellectual daring drive him on to this terrible discovery of his fundamental ignorance—he is not the measure of all things but the thing measured and found wanting. 143

There is much in what Fagles says of Athens that can be said of America today (and in the past). The American spirit has great similarity with that of the Athenian ideal in the 5th century and we are at a point in history when technology leads us to believe that we are capable of measuring all things and setting the direction of our own destiny, history, and fate. It remains to be seen if we are the measurers or the thing measured: if we, as a culture, will suffer the same fate to which hubris and self-confidence led Oedipus—to his own fall. The only question is the means of this fall, which will not, in our time be brought about by gods; but we dare not dismiss what the gods fundamentally represent: the impersonal and terrible force of nature, which we court and unleash with every new experiment in virology, genetics, and computer intelligence. Chaos theory applies. We cannot predict the forces that we play with or that we may unleash—like the character played by Jeff Goldblum in Jurrasic Park, and like the Chorus itself in Oedipus, we are caught between the belief in self-made destiny and the implacable force of gods.

I have been trying to figure out just what the point of this play is, really. I mean, one of the strong points or over-arching facets, I’m sure, is something that I, too, have been thinking about for some time: namely, how much of the crap we put up with during our daily lives do we really need? That is, the cell phones, the wireless phones, the laptops, internet connections, dvrs, dish tv, gps devices, home design, redesign, clothing, furnishing, and so-on—and all the pressure that comes with this ‘stuff’ (to quote Carlin, God rest his soul). Always there is the incessant pressure to communicate, to be available, and to be “on” 24×7. It is as if we live lives with no downtime, ever.

One of the main points of In the Garden is that Gabe (Tony Thai) lives in the park (a garden, of sorts, for the city). Of course, here it is reduced to a refuge for the homeless (possibly insane), for sexual trysts, etc. It is a place that people visit, briefly (jog through), but not for any real measure of time. Gabe is the only one who lives in the park (in this play) and the only one committed to experiencing life as lived in the park: some of his better lines involve his observations of the changing light, the clouds and sky, the different pace at which life moves in the “outdoors.” One of my favorite lines has Gabe saying that the Gods were invented at twilight—and through my own personal experience I could see very clearly how—more accurately, perhaps—feel very certainly how. It is at twilight, with the thinning of light, the sun sinking behind trees and casting shadows, sunlight filtering and slicing through the jagged puzzle pieces of leaf, the temperamental transition of energy from that of the active day to that of the hunkering night—that delicate time when a tenuous balance is formed for a moment of eternity; it is at this moment that I can see the Gods walking across the meadow at the edge of the forest; or appearing by a stream in the wood. And perhaps, more broadly, the question of what have we lost that now we spend so little time just out on the land, experiencing the weather and the passage of time—not in cycles of a processor, but in the movement of sunlight and shadow? It is the quiet time that allows us to be in touch with our soul: the element of us all that is most sound and sturdy. And this point, too, Norman Allen makes in one of his more dystopian moments: that we are on the cusp of lives lived as machines (automatons), not as human beings.

Other clues to the meaning of this play involve the obvious parallels with the title and the strong Biblical and Christian themes that run through In the Garden: 1) Eden 2) Gethsemane. The mythic parallels between the two Gardens are strong, of course, and here my reading and understanding of Joseph Campbell comes happily into play: Eden gave us the two trees which actually are one tree: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life; Gethsemane gave us the new Tree of Life—the Cross, on which Christ was Crucified (hanged and thus was the fruit of tree). The Garden of Eden is a place of unity, a place where the pairs of opposites are joined, and thus is likely also the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from whence the knowledge of opposites comes. The mythic significance of this is well known, too, and its representation is everywhere and varied. This is why at the liminal spaces of temples one usually sees a pair of monsters or creatures (guardian figures): one with mouth closed and one with mouth open: representing desire and fear. Those who know fear and desire will not be able to fully enter the temple (unity) as they cannot see beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world is filled. This is why the Buddha’s temptations were of fear, desire (lust), and dharma—or social duty—thou shalt be this and do this… Where Christ’s temptations were food (physical hunger, desire), power (social hunger, duty), and fear (of death, cast yourself down). According to Campbell it is not coincidence that Christ experienced three temptations and had twelve apostles and that the Buddha experienced three temptations and had twelve followers either—Campbell also remarks that you can see the similarity in the personalities of all the apostles. The significance also is that the Buddha lived 500 years before Christ and raises questions about where Christ went for those 30+ years that are absent from this story. But I digress. The point here is that the Garden (Eden) as a symbol shows the hope of eternity (eternal life and a place in unity with the world) and the place of loss (where knowledge of the world is gained); and we see these represented in Allen’s piece. The Garden (Gethsemane) represents a moment of eternity (calm away from the world) and a place of betrayal (loss of that moment).

The sexual escapades with all of the characters, excepting Lizzie (Laurel Brooke Johnson, who, as Tony Brown points out, serves as a sort of Mary Magdalene figure–the irony being that she is chaste in this rendition), represent a sort of odd Garden of Eden for the other characters: John (Vince DePaul), a Philosophy Professor; John’s wife Muriel (Lucy Bredeson-Smith), head of a fashion magazine; and Lizzie’s fiancé, Walter (Arthur Grothe), a narcissistic businessman. For Lizzie and Gabe, the park is likely the Eden of the piece. It is ironic, however, that in this carnal Eden for three of the characters, Gabe entices them to reveal their most raw spiritual moments. In this way, Gabe serves as a sort of touch stone for them—drawing them out of their personas (or put on selves) and back to their souls (or true selves).

As one might expect, with the Biblical overtones and references to Christ, a crucifixion has to come. This aspect of Allen’s piece is difficult for me for several reasons. The first is, from a writer’s perspective, I feel that Allen must have felt forced to put this in. Force is a word I choose carefully because I felt the whole lead up to the end of this play was precisely that: forced. I felt that too much consciousness went into its design and calculation. The reason I feel this is based on my own experience: my own piece, coming up at the end of the season, also contains crucifixion as a metaphor; which brings me to the second difficulty. In my piece, the crucifixion came out unconsciously in the writing and I didn’t even realize it. Unfortunately, later I did realize it. When I did, I tried to use it and force that fate on everyone. It was Clyde, con-con’s artistic director, who pointed out to me that this was predictable and a let-down. I knew this to some extent, having discussed just this issue in the work shopping of the piece in Geither’s MFA class. Though I digress, this problem is still one that troubles me greatly—what the unconscious writes, the conscious will tamper with (edit). So, back to the second point, I realized that the writing had been unconsciously done and was in many respects dreamlike. If there’s anything the conscious mind can’t stand, it’s something that doesn’t make sense—and thus this part of my mind tried to “arrange” the writing so that is was sensible and lovely. The effect was disastrous. For Allen’s work, I don’t know that I would say disastrous, but the crucifixion certainly was expected and was a bit disappointing. As well, as soon as I saw it, I began immediately rummaging through the whole length of the play attempting to find all the other parallels with Christ’s story. An even worse consequence, perhaps, is that I have come to imagine In the Garden as a sort of re-write or re-visioning of this event. As a writer, I wonder more seriously if Allen didn’t get into the middle of this play—letting it go it’s merry way with Gabe and all the bed-fellows—and then wonder one terrible night just what in the hell he was into, and then, just as I mentioned above, force it a direction that seemed palatable and conclusive. The temptation to do this is great and, as I see now, more writers than me have to deal with the challenge it represents.

Ultimately, as many other reviewers have pointed out, the play is often confusing. There is too much philosophy and talkiness pummeling the audience and at times it was ridiculous to think of people having the conversations that these people were having. And in this case, it becomes more seam-splitting for Allen’s piece that the one character is a philosophy professor, which then justifies (or attempts to justify) the elevated level of conversation. That is, this character was created precisely so these conversations could take place: it is less organic. Another difficulty was that sometimes it was difficult to understand what Thai was saying, which muddled the meaning and slowed and strained the pace of the dialog. I think this play is good, but in my heart I feel that it is not finished. If this were my play, I would feel that very strongly—that something else needed for clarification or definition or that something needs examined more closely. Maybe it is because I, in some ways, feel that about my play that goes up in November—maybe I am projecting. I’ll have to get a copy of Allen’s play and read it to be sure. In the end, though, all five actors were strong and convincing. I give special kudos to Lucy Bredeson-Smith, who looked stunning throughout; and to Grothe who created a believable and smarmy Walter and who, with unbelievable grace, stopped the cap of a window blind cord from tapping incessantly against the wall (where the central air was pushing it). Complements also go to the set design, especially the multi-colored floor, which was very pleasing to look upon. I wish I would have seen this play earlier (the run is over), as I would like to see it at least one more time.