The story of Oedipus is a tragic tale of a king who fell from grace, a consequence of deluded hubris. Believing himself to be a great man of conviction and honor, Oedipus the King of Thebes chooses to defy his nefarious fate as foretold by an Oracle that he would murder his father and eventually wed his mother. Oedipus was a proud self-righteous King who was held in high-esteem whose path to his damnation was ironically carved out by his own wills of perceived good intent, intending to solve the murder of the late Thebian King Laius and absolve the city of the curse laid by the Sphinx. Consequently, these series of acts of prideful good will have ultimately led to the discovery by Oedipus and others of the true perpetrator of the crime, Oedipus himself. The scene ends with Oedipus who understands that his nefarious fate was self-fulfilled, learning that his victim was not just King Laius, but also his biological father. It is also at this point in which he realizes that the Queen that he wed also happened to be his mother and out of shame and self-grief- Oedipus gouges his eyes out as punishment.

The stage was unconvincing though expected from an improvisational stage play. The set was staged rather cheaply and no choreography went into the stage props. Even as the story unfolded through the roughly One-Hour play, the scenes lacked fluid transition and dynamics. Another issue was that although the Director had asserted towards the end that this version of Oedipus The King was abridged- it was disappointing to see a common problem that can pervade a rushed script, much like a poorly composed writing piece. The director cut out too much of transitional scenes and failed to provide a sufficient backstory to prepare the audience for what would turn out to be a heavy tale of a scrupulous proud man destined to a fate of tragedy. It can be surmised that the director unknowingly assumed the audience to have had adequate prior knowledge of the play. A spoken preface would have sufficed in allowing those not acquainted with Sophocles tragedy to follow the story in a smooth fashion. Those who have not previously read the book, will find themselves thrashing inside the deep end of the proverbial pool. With the lack of an engaging stage prop dynamism and the lack of accentuating costumes had left me struggling to understand the role of each actor/actress. A redeeming aspect of the play was the assertive depiction of King Oedipus, a man too prideful to accept the fate handed down by the Gods (Apollo) as spoken by the Oracle, by an actor who spoke with powerful and commanding voice among his subjects and brother Creon- which allowed me to grasp the concept of his persona and role as Oedipus in the Sophocles play.