Now that the World Health Organization has said COVID-19 “no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern” but is instead “an ongoing health issue,” how will theatre makers and audiences read plague- and pandemic-themed plays?
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the character Oedipus and the ancient Greek drama based on his tragedy was suddenly everywhere. A figure from ancient Greek myth who was fated to kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus has been most famous over the last century for the controversial “complex” that Sigmund Freud named after him.
In the pandemic, out of the shadows of Freud, the world remembered Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus (Oedipus Rex /Oedipus the King) was not just a psycho-sexual drama, but a play about a city-devastating plague, most likely first produced in 429 BCE after an unknown disease swept through Athens.
