In D.C. last month, a "bawdy, Brit twist" of an ancient story opened in the H Street Playhouse for those theater-viewers that might consider themselves scholars, or perhaps hobbyist scholars.
We all know the Oedipus Rex story, but at GREEK, four actors become the Greek chorus to tell the story to the newest generation of "mother-f**ckers". . . since, as any psychiatrist-to-be might tell you, we all have something primal in common with Oedipus. But in GREEK, written 30 years ago for a London audience by Stephen Berkoff, the tragic hero is Ed, and he's not exactly the King of Thebes.
Ed's parents put him up for adoption when — spoiler alert! — they hear from a skeevy fortune teller that the son will murder the father and do nasty things to the guy's wife. This modern story, which preserves the ancient, opens with a seemingly nuclear family sitting around an old-looking table in an old-looking theater. The family is, of course, expelling the son out of superstition, and so the audience follows Ed's journey, being then comfortable with all the characters being now also a Greek chorus.
The actors take advantage of Greek theatrical stereotypes, and come adorned in makeup, but no masks, and speak in dramatic voices resounding with the misunderstood flavors of ancient Greek drama.
Certainly the most exciting part of the play is when Danielle Davy (the adoptive mom of Ed) transforms into the Sphinx who haunts Ed's city. She puts the classic riddle to him — what walks on two legs in the morning, four in the afternoon, and three at night? He offers the classic answer: man. But the twist is more obvious than one might expect; which is to say, guess what the night's "third leg" might be . . .
The acting is marvelous. The sing-song cadence of the chorus provides a lightly contemporary melody for a dark tragedy, yet the whole thing is starkly present-day. While the accents might make us feel out-of-touch, the humanity keeps us tethered to the performance in front of us.
GREEK should be praised for its bravery in resurrecting a beat-to-death story. Though its poetry is graphic and touches on a masculinity that verges on the frightening, it's also what ties the ancient to the modern. The ancient was just as graphic or more as GREEK, and the tale is the same as presented by Stephen Berkoff . . . yet GREEK is just a delightful smidgeon more relatable.
