Director Gives Preview of "Oedipus"

By:Brittany Ann Meister

Nick Hurtgen, director of VFR's upcoming Oedipus, discusses a few details about his Greek tragedy.


What is different or unique about your Oedipus?
It has a lot of elements of what you’d expect from a greek tragedy, but there’s also a lot of devised choreography, which a lot of people wouldn’t assume would go with a greek tragedy. We've included a lot of modern elements.
The whole concept is based around making the audience feel uncomfortable so there’s a lot of jarring moments and decisions both with the design and the presentation of the characters that I think is going to really bring home that effect on people. Making them feel uncomfortable.

Why do you want to make them uncomfortable?
I think that tragedies, especially familiar ones, like with Hamlet and Oedipus, knowing the end of the story, allows the audience to protect themselves from the full emotional impact of the story. And by creating that discomfort it will have the audience focus in on the moment and lose track of where the story is leading to. So that when you get to the end and everything finally clicks together and the real tragedy of the play is revealed, it will hit harder. And the moral of the story, the main point of Oedipus, shows up at the end of the script in the last line of the play, “count no mortal happy til he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.”
And I think that line specifically is saying that you can assume that everything is going great, you can think it’s happy, but the universe will throw a wrench at you. You have to be able to protect yourself.

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Keep an eye on our Facebook and websitefor more information about Oedipus in the new year!