Oedipus Tour History

About the Performance, Inspiration, and Goals…

Oedipus (complexly) is our Experimental Classical Theater, in it HoME offers not just an ordinary theatre experience but also theatre as a game, one that involves a blend of genres and styles like: immersive theater; classical theater with audience participation; site specific theater; a talk show; psychological games; Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, and Jodorowsky’s Psychomagic. It is a play that changes and evolves through the active participation of the audience and can have a completely different ending each night! The performance brings the ancient polis to life, the audience helps us to solve a murder mystery – a regicide – the murder of a king that brought the plague to their city. Together we ask: does tragedy have to happen?

In Oedipus (complexly) HoME takes their interactive site-specific performances to a new level: the telling of the story takes the audience on a journey through the entire space of the theater, the café, the foyer, auditorium, stage, backstage, dressings rooms and the outside spaces of the theater, and through theater history as well. HoME's Oedipus plays with the Sophocles' classical tale of the tragedy of Oedipus - the fallen king, in order to explore the contemporary aspects of tragedy in their own lives, and in the lives of spectators, by means of dialogue with the audience.

"Nobody could have imagined, that one could experience the ancient Greek story in such an authentic way" - UnBorn.cz's Peter Vacha describes the performance: "each spectator has the opportunity to influence the course of the performance. The experimental drama theatre by HoME, directed by Howard Lotker, creates a situation in which the contemporary spectator becomes a personally interested member of the ancient polis. The spectators are involved in the play from the very first scene, passivity is not permitted. Spectators are guessing the answer to the famous riddle of the Sphinx, they cry and moan, suffering from the plague as part of the Greek chorus, and most importantly they talk about different complexes and traumas with the characters of the Oedipus story, as well as with complete strangers."

"Throughout the performance, the detective story of the killing of Oedipus' father is not retold, but is discovered and experienced together with the audience. Spectators... talk about which personal tragedies would make a person capable of killing another. Later on, the spectators take on the role of moderators of destiny, as the actors act out the spectators' ideas of about how Oedipus can escape his catastrophic destiny."


Reviews

"I believe this experimental drama theater by the international theater company HoME's Oedipus (complexly) to be the most controversial October premiere at Alfred ve dvoře. They turn theater upside down, mixing audience and performers and thereby confusing their original roles. The story is put together like a puzzle, which can be built into several different pictures. Accident is brought into play and given a role as well - casting doubt on the status of the story as the given, unchanging basis of the performance. They improvise where the original story is certain and unavoidable, they also touch on Aristotle's concept of catharsis and it's therapeutic function. They turn the theater inside out literally as well. HoME theater has become a specialist at gnawing away at theatrical conventions."

Jana Bohutínská, A2 Weekly Arts and Culture Magazine

 

"...it is just as unexpected to find that it is possible to experience an ancient story in such an authentic way - in which everyone present is able to have an influence on and effect the course of the performance. HoME's theatrical experiment, under the direction of Howard Lotker, manages to create a situation where a contemporary audience member becomes a personally interested member of the ancient polis."

Peter Vacha, UnBorn.cz

 
 

Complete list of performances

  • I . Premiere and subsequent performances with original cast

  • II . Part of Mala Inventura at La Fabrika Praha

  • III . English Language world Premiere Special Guest as Oedipus in English – Charles Persons, in the English world premiere

  • IV . Nova Sit / New Web touring version with original cast in a newly reconstructed church in Opava

  • V . Celebrating 5 years of HoME theater. Festival at Alfred ve dvoře theater in Prague with original cast 17.11 in Czech and 18.11.2010 in English with Chip Persons as Oedipus

  • VI . Boulder Colorado, US Premiere at ATLAS Black Box Experimental Studio Theater 17 and 18 of March, 2011

  • VII . Spanish Language Premiere in Mexico City at Teatro La Capilla


I . Premiere and subsequent performances with original cast

Prague - October 2007

Premiere and subsequent performances with original cast at October the 24th 2007 in Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, Prague

Artistic Team for Premiere:

Concept and Direction: Howard Lotker

Co-authors and Original Cast: Carli Jefferson, Alexander Komlosi, Josef Rosen, Daniela Voráčková, Andrea Miltner,

Dramaturgy: Sodja Lotker

Music and Sounds: Jan Burian

Light Design: Vladimir Burian

Set and Costume Design: Philipp Schenker & Howard Lotker

Sponsors: Ministry of Culture of the CR and MOTUS, o. s. - an Alfred ve dvoře theatre production, Nova SIt

Performance Language: Czech and English, later a Spanish version was created for the premiere in Mexico City, with Luna Avante, at Teatro La Capilla.

 

II . Part of Mala Inventura at La Fabrika

Prague - February 2008

Concept and Direction: Howard Lotker

Co-authors and Original Cast: Carli Jefferson, Alexander Komlosi, Josef Rosen, Daniela Voráčková, Andrea Miltner,

Dramaturgy: Sodja Lotker

Music and Sounds: Jan Burian

Light Design: Vladimir Burian

Set and Costume Design: Philipp Schenker & Howard Lotker

 

III . English Language world Premiere Special Guest as Oedipus in English

Prague - June 2009

Charles Persons, in the English world premiere at Alfred ve dvoře theater in Prague June 13, 2009

 

IV . Nova Sit / New Web touring

Opava

Nova Sit / New Web touring version with original cast in a newly reconstructed church in Opava

 

V . Celebrating 5 years of HoME theater

Prague - November 2010

Festival at Alfred ve dvoře theater in Prague with original cast 17.11 in Czech and 18.11.2010 in English with Chip Persons as Oedipus

 

VI . Boulder Colorado, US Premiere

Boulder Colorado - March 2011

Boulder Colorado, US Premiere at ATLAS Black Box Experimental Studio Theater 17 and 18 of March, 2011 at with cast of Charles Persons, Alexander Komlosi, Daniela Voráčková, Emmi Komlosi, Howard

 

VII . Spanish Language Premiere in Mexico City

Mexico City - August 2012

Spanish Language Premiere in Mexico City at Teatro La Capilla, in collaboration with theater company Luna Avante Antonio Salinas (producing, translating and acting in the performance) in, August 14, 2012. The performance was supposed to run in repertoire at Teatro La Capilla for 3 months ended up running for 2 years..

Co-production of the Mexican company Luna Avante, the Czech company HoME Christina Maldonado’s Exchange Committee and Teatro La Capilla."