A GREEK TRAGEDY ‘OEDIPUS REX – THE KING’ Adina Grand Treasury Adelaide Until 10 Mar 2018 Review by Brian Godfrey A few years ago, this reviewer was fortunate enough to play Creon in an outdoor production of “Oedipus Rex”. It is quite possibly the greatest of all the Greek tragedies. The very simplified synopsis would be: guy sleeps with his mother, kills his father and blinds himself – all very “Days Of Our Lives”. But Sophocles’ drama is so much more: rich in text and the complexities of human life. 71-year-old Loucas Loizou attempts to give his audience an almost Cliff Notes version, accompanied by songs and just himself performing three of the drama’s characters: one of which he has invented himself. Accompanying himself on guitar occasionally and portraying Jocasta’s (Oedipus’ wife) priest, blind prophet Tiresias, and Oedipus himself is a clever idea to try to bring new audiences into discovering this classic, which is obviously cherished by Loizou – but this reviewer isn’t quite convinced that it’s successful. One of the problems is that he is 71 and although his memory seems fairly good, it does skip a beat occasionally, putting him and us into a ‘loop’. Another problem is that Loizou has quite a rich and beautiful Greek accent which is hard to understand at times. The main problem is location. The tunnels, as wonderfully intriguing as they are, can and do get very stuffy. This stuffiness combined with Loizou’s monotonal (as beautiful as it is) narration tends to be somewhat sleep inducing. All in all, a good idea that could do with a little tweaking (and perhaps a director). Rating: 3 stars out of 5