Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T08:02:25.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Oedipus, a New Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

Extract

The performance area is a large rectangle set off by silver tape. The audience is arranged on three sides of the rectangle.

Throughout the performance a young girl holding a cane sits on a stage or a platform. She is “Antigone.” She does not move until Section Fifteen.

There should be spotlights focused on the performance rectangle and one dim spot on “Antigone.” Behind her should be a large screen for slideprojections. Everything else should be dark, and the lighting should be arranged in such a way that it will be possible to see the slide projections without turning off the lights.

All of the objects and props to be utilized are arranged within the rectangle. There are: Silver tape, incense sticks stuck into small lumps of clay, four full-length mirrors—the inside of the mounting is painted red so that when they are broken this becomes visible, but the backs are painted black—twelve wooden yardsticks, six pairs of nylon stockings, the I Ching, three gas masks, three stones, a hammer.

Type
TDR/Document
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 The Drama Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

(Editor's Note: The following script/description of OEDIPUS, a New Work was written by John Perreault after the first performance of his piece at New York University on May 2, 1971. The author was the main performer, (“Oedipus,” the “Sphinx,” the “Oracle”) ; the performance lasted an hour and a half. Of this piece, Perreault has said: “I want to communicate the sense, the feeling of an ‘ordeal,’ but not push it to the point where everyone leaves. Skating on thin ice is the only way to skate.”)