Oedipus (NHB Modern Plays) (eBook)

The same room, now decisively abandoned. Pizza boxes, water bottles, discarded T-shirts, half-deflated balloons. It’s not yet been a day but it has been left and left for the final time and is now halfway through being packed up. Throughout the evening, attendants pack more and more things into boxes, and carry them away, until, by the end, the room stands white and empty.

The ‘days to go’ countdown clock, big red electronic numbers, is counting down in days, weeks, minutes and seconds, to the moment the election result will be decided. Now it shows only an hour and fifty minutes, and the time flows away.

MEROPE, an elderly, motherly woman, held-together, waits. She’s wearing an outdoor coat. The interview we’ve just watched with OEDIPUS plays on a screen and she watches it, almost severely.

People moving stuff and moving stuff and moving stuff.

OEDIPUS enters with CREON.

CREON It’s like you don’t even know you’re doing it. You can ignore a question – you know, nothing bad happens if a question’s left unanswered.

OEDIPUS catches sight of MEROPE – stops –

OEDIPUS Mum.

You look beautiful.

Hello.

MEROPE Hello

There’s tension here, between these two – is it sexual? We might wonder.

OEDIPUS I didn’t see you there.

MEROPE No

OEDIPUS I didn’t / see you

MEROPE I know.

OEDIPUS I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight –

MEROPE I didn’t tell you.

,

OEDIPUS How is he?

MEROPE The same.

,

OEDIPUS I hadn’t realised you were going to be here – I / didn’t know

MEROPE I need some time with you alone.

JOCASTA comes in.

OEDIPUS Honey, my mum is here –

JOCASTA Hello

OEDIPUS look at this –

JOCASTA How long have you been here?

MEROPE An hour or so. This place is a tip.

JOCASTA Why clean, is what I always say – you can’t prevent decay – (to OEDIPUS) but the campaign is over and we have all earned a little celebration

OEDIPUS I’m – a bit stunned by the fact that my mother has travelled all the way here to surprise me tonight, which must have been your [JOCASTA’s] doing – a little celebration –

JOCASTA She –

MEROPE No, that isn’t why I came. I didn’t know.

,

This is slightly awkward – and we realise there is some tension between MEROPE and JOCASTA.

JOCASTA Well – tonight is a night for us all to celebrate –

MEROPE You know it’s not his birthday.

JOCASTA I do know that, yes –

OEDIPUS Ladies –

CREON Sorry – it’s a very / busy

MEROPE I need to talk to him

OEDIPUS has seen ANTIGONE, his daughter, clutching a book – early for the ‘surprise’ reveal. JOCASTA annoyed that the plan for the evening hasn’t been adhered to.

ANTIGONE Dad!

OEDIPUS And the scholar returns!

JOCASTA oh wonderful

OEDIPUS Is the gang all here – ?

ANTIGONE I’m here for the victory party

OEDIPUS well you’re two hours early

ANTIGONE well I brought work

OEDIPUS and what mystery of human nature are we unscrambling this evening?

ANTIGONE The difference between a paradox and a riddle.

OEDIPUS And they say academics have become irrelevant. What is it?

ANTIGONE what?

OEDIPUS The difference

ANTIGONE One’s got a solution – one’s just something you have to live with?

OEDIPUS Sounds like the choice on the ballot paper

JOCASTA Oedipus

OEDIPUS One has solutions. One you’d just have to live with.

JOCASTA It’s all behind us, the campaign’s over, the polls are closed.

MEROPE I need to speak to him

CREON Sorry. Not now. He has a meeting.

OEDIPUS Cancel it.

CREON No.

JOCASTA What is it?

CREON It’s me.

OEDIPUS Now? We can speak later

CREON After tonight, you have no later

OEDIPUS One night off. One night off is all I ask

CREON (to JOCASTA) Could you please tell your husband / that

OEDIPUS (to JOCASTA) Could you please tell your brother

JOCASTA Overruling, two against one, how long will it take?

CREON [Thank you] – really not very long

OEDIPUS I’m guessing we still have security here tonight?

CREON No, because I have absolutely no idea how to do my job –

OEDIPUS The tragedy is: you think that’s a joke.

JOCASTA It’s a conversation, yes? Do it, have it, then we can relax –

JOCASTA exits, as she does, kissing OEDIPUS –

MEROPE Oedipus, I need a few minutes with you. Alone.

OEDIPUS Why?

MEROPE If it were for public consumption, it wouldn’t need to be alone.

OEDIPUS Okay. Well, hold fire – and later, we’ll catch up. Corin, my friend, could you take my mother and look after her with the utmost care and attention?

CORIN (elderly, kindly) has been on stage – fussing, tidying – for a while.

CORIN It would be my pleasure

OEDIPUS And before the evening is out, we will find a moment to talk.

MEROPE Very good.

LICHAS The third office is already cleared –

CORIN I’ll bring you to it – this way

MEROPE leaves with CORIN – OEDIPUS catches LICHAS, his personal aide, as she goes out.

OEDIPUS So, an unscheduled surprise?

LICHAS It would be less surprising if we’d put it on the schedule.

OEDIPUS You drew the shortest of short straws – being here tonight

LICHAS I wanted to be. Honestly.

She follows them. OEDIPUS looks at CREON. OEDIPUS changes his clothes.

OEDIPUS Now let me get ahead of you – and admit that I didn’t say word for word what you / wanted me to say

CREON It’s Captain Exceptional again, the superhuman, saviour of the world –

OEDIPUS You can’t just put words in my mouth

CREON That is literally what speechwriting is

OEDIPUS I will speak from myself. I will say what I want to say as I accept the position for which I have spent a year running. With help. Yes. But it is me they are electing and me they will hear. I will speak from myself. All right?

CREON Most leaders would discuss strategy with their teams before announcing it to the world. And this is complex. No plan. No discussion. The birth certificate – and God, reopening Laius’ death?

OEDIPUS If I say in public we’re doing it, then we have to do it. It keeps you on your toes –

CREON It should have been discussed. It’s complex and, as usual, there’s more involved than you realised / when you

OEDIPUS I am so sick of it being a problem to this campaign that I am not dishonest –

CREON Your image, the way you are seen, is something we have to control

OEDIPUS Now? No. I am me. I am me. The campaign’s done. It’s over.

TEIRESIAS Oedipus

A new voice. Both of them puzzled.

OEDIPUS Who’s this?

TEIRESIAS Oedipus – I know your voice.

TEIRESIAS, blind, appears, somehow already in the room.

OEDIPUS (to CREON) Did you get me a stripper?

CREON I’m sorry, I think you’ve come to the wrong place

TEIRESIAS Oedipus, you can hear me – you are here

CREON How did you get in here?

TEIRESIAS The child brought me.

OEDIPUS Everyone welcome.

CREON I do apologise: this is supposed to be a secure location, and you don’t have permission to be / here

TEIRESIAS Oedipus –

LICHAS I’ll get security

OEDIPUS Oh come on, look at him – if he manages to assassinate me against those odds, fair play to him.

OEDIPUS, kind, leads him, sits him down.

Come. Can I have...