Oedipus is a 2018 play by Robert Icke. It is a reimagining of the play Oedipus Tyrannos by Sophocles, set on the evening of an election.
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Plot
Oedipus is a politician on the verge of winning a landslide election. As his family gather for an evening together, and as the polls close, Oedipus' life starts to fall apart. As a clock ticks down to his victory in real time, the truth about who he is emerges.
Production history
Toneelgroep Amsterdam (2018)
Having been invited by Ivo van Hove to Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Icke wrote Oedipus specifically for the actors of the ensemble. Icke wrote in English, and the script was translated into Dutch by Rob Klinkenberg. Working with his regular creative team, designer Hildegard Bechtler, lighting designer Natasha Chivers, video designer Tal Yarden and sound designer Tom Gibbons, Icke's production premiered on 8 April 2018 in the Melkweg's Rabozaal. Its critical success led to Icke making a further four productions with the company. Icke stated his goal as "...to provide for an audience today the impact and immediacy of the original before we all knew its twists and turns". Icke spoke later of the production as a "love story", specifying: "It's easy in Oedipus to make the audience go, 'Ugh, incest.' The difficult thing is to make them want the incest to continue. The challenge is to take the audience to the place they didn't know they could go." The Dutch production toured, including to the Edinburgh International Festival in 2019, where it received rave reviews from the UK theatre press. It was later filmed as an ITA Live capture.
West End (2024)
In 2019, Sonia Friedman announced that Icke's production would open in the West End in 2020, starring Mark Strong and Helen Mirren. Following the COVID pandemic, Mirren's schedule prohibited her participation and Lesley Manville was announced as the production's new Jocasta. The same creative team worked on the production, and the script was published by Nick Hern Books.
It opened at the Wyndham's Theatre on the 15th October 2024 to ecstatic reviews from the UK press. Icke, Manville and Strong all won Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and Manville an Olivier Award for Best Actress. The production was named the Best Revival at the Olivier Awards in 2025.
Broadway (2025)
The production, led by Strong and Manville, transferred to Studio 54 in the fall of 2025 and played a successful season until February 2026. Anne Reid made her Broadway debut in the role of Merope, aged 90. The production was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play and nominations for Strong and Manville.
Elsewhere
The production, with the same creative team, opened in the fall of 2025 in Athens at the Onassis Stegi, performed in Greek. The same creative team opened a production in German at the Residence Theatre in Munich.
The play opened the 2027 season for the Sydney Theatre Company, starring Heather Mitchell and Richard Roxburgh.
Critical reception
Icke's production has largely been received well by critics. Sarah Hemming wrote in her five-star Financial Times review of the London production:Icke's staging buzzes with resonance in a world where truth is a contested commodity and politicians promising change stride across the public domain, where arguments rage about who belongs and who doesn't. But it also goes much deeper. It reaches far into the nagging question of how much any of us really want to know, evoking that sudden lurch of panic when a partner's infidelity, a redundancy or a medical diagnosis pulls the rug from under us and shifts our perception of who we are.
In The New York Times, Alexis Soloski praised the show, calling Strong's and Manville's performances "superb" and Icke's script "electrifying".