3 Introduction to Oedipus
Anything you need to learn about theatre you can learn from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.
The Ancient Greeks are credited with the invention of western drama. Though ritual and storytelling had been a part of human civilization for thousands of years before the Greeks took to the stage, they put drama at the center of their cultural life and their plays are the first real collection of the art form we have. Starting around the fifth-century BCE, the citizens of Athens celebrated the God Dionysus by presenting a week-
long festival of plays in his name. Over the course of this week, three playwrights would present four plays each, which were performed in front of crowds of 15,000 or more – the Super Bowl of the ancient world.
As the (very simplified) story goes, Greek theatre took the jump from ritual to drama through the actions of a chorus member named Thespis, who is credited with being the first group performer to step out of the chorus and speak as a single character (and also creating the term “thespian” for actors). From this one actor, a writer named Aeschylus began writing plays for two, thus creating the possibility for conflict in
drama. Sophocles, the writer of this version of Oedipus the King, built on Aeschylus’ work, creating plays for three actors, giving his work the potential for heightened conflict.
At the time Sophocles wrote the play (approximately 431 BCE), the story of Oedipus was well known by the Greek audience. Therefore, the original audience didn’t watch the play to see what would happen to Oedipus. They watched to see how Sophocles would tell the story.
Writing 100 years after the play was first performed, Aristotle used plays like Oedipus the King to create his instructions for how to write compelling drama. Oedipus was respected in Aristotle’s time, and in ours, because it gets at the heart of what makes drama compelling: an
engaging character wants something, works hard to get that something, and we, the audience, watch in anticipation to see if he does.
That is Oedipus. That is drama. That is story.