traditional , rhetorical and stylised version of the play replete with the beautiful , authentic masks used by playwrights in ancient Greece . However , Wayne Jordan presents a more colloquial version interspersed with fragments of Yeats ’ poetry in the choral odes performed between bouts of frenetic activity and suspense . Furthermore , the cast wear contemporary gear , indeed there is no attempt to locate the play in its original context . This may be a deliberate strategy or reflect upon the impecunity of the Abbey theatre . The chorus is Jordan ’ s most distinctive innovation since the magnificent choral odes composed by Sophocles are sung rather than spoken or chanted . This offers a more operatic version of the play since the choral odes neatly and precisely divide the play up into segments of action where revelation is matched with suspense . Yeats ’ version of the play requires a thesis in its own right since Yeats was dependent on a previous translation of the play which was banal and forgettable . He did not know ancient Greek ( but once declared petulantly ‘ I have lost all my Greek !’) yet somehow fashions great poetry from his study some of which can be found in the adaptation but fragments also found their way into Yeats ’ poetry collection The Tower .
An important aspect of Wayne Jordan ’ s production is the sparsity of the text , its antipoetic origins in colloquial language and its realist impulse totally opposed to the earlier version by Tyrone Guthrie which required authenticity and a classical feel yet also appears rigid and wooden . Of course Jordan ’ s play epitomises the demands of a different time when fluidity and modernity appear to simulate authenticity but it is quite obvious the play is far from being authentic . Probably the biggest issue that Jordan might face are allegations of elitism and remoteness which he has been forced to address . However , Jordan ’ s version may be closer to the original than it seems . Jocasta ’ s suicide , for instance , happens off stage , as does Oedipus ’ s self-blinding . These events are reported by a narrator who is given the hapless task of recalling the ensuing events to the citizens / chorus . In ancient Greek drama violence also occurred discretely offstage , an authentic element ignored by , for instance , Marina Carr in her play By the Bog of Cats .
The actors reiterated the contemporary feel of the play by reading their lines in an authentic , contemporary manner . In Guthrie ’ s version the actors perform their lines with immense gravitas and a dignity that ultimately becomes pompous and selfconsciously theatrical . However , Guthrie ’ s version was made at a different time when the shadow of the Second World War had hardly faded . Thus the seriousness of implied Modernism in his production is appropriate since the world at that stage lived under threat of nuclear destruction . For me the outstanding performer was Fiona Bell as Jocasta because it was never clear from her performance whether she really knew who Oedipus was . This is the crux of the play . Barry John O ’ Connor as Oedipus conveyed the growing sense of paranoia that is becoming intense and