THE SOWER OF THE SERPENT'S TEETH AND THE PEACEMAKER

What does it mean to take up an ancient text in a modern context? The answer lies in the question itself. That is to say, the work of staging an ancient text is more than understanding what it has meant in the past. It also about understanding what it could mean for a contemporary audience. It is not exactly the work of adaptation, staging an ancient text is not always about modernization. It is also not purely the work of interpretation; though a clear vision is necessary, it is not enough. Taking context seriously is not about bringing something familiar to an extant and in our case ancient text, it is about mining that text for deep and meaningful ways of knowing something new and different about what we think is familiar. So with that in mind what might Sophocles’ Oedipus Trilogy mean in the context of Hyde Park in 2019 and 2020? Moreover, what does it mean for Court Theatre, the center for classic theatre at the University of Chicago to contend with a text about fate, redemption, and justice? History in this case means everything. As an artistic team we cannot take up the tragedy of Oedipus at Court without taking up the greater context of migration, specifically Black Migration to Chicago. We cannot interrogate the House of Cadmus from it’s foundations without thinking with the Black founder of our city Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. We cannot think about the mysterious power of Mt. Citheron, without honoring the might of Lake Michigan.

The text begins in a familiar land with a familiar tale but in an ancient time. Sophocles was writing in Athens in the 5th century BC about Theban myths from the Bronze Age. The cycle tells the story of a family, present from the founding of a city on the banks of a river, it is a story about what it cost to build Thebes. For the house of Cadmus Thebes cost everything, it claimed their lives and legacy. Over two thousand years after the age of Cadmus and 1000 years after Sophocles enshrined his story in text over 4,000 miles away another man followed his destiny to the banks of a river in a foreign land. The history of Black Migration to Chicago is about the cost of building a Black Metropolis. What can we learn from this text about what we owe to those who gave everything?

GABBY'S BIO

Assistant Director/ Production Dramaturg

Gabby is a scholar, director, and dramaturg who’s passionate about social justice, storytelling, and the power of performance to change the world. She has a dual BA degree in drama and sociology from Stanford and an MA degree in performance as public practice at The UT Austin. She’s worked professionally across the United States in LA, D.C., Austin, and NYC (off-Broadway) and internationally. In Chicago, she’s worked with Sideshow Theatre (Artistic Associate), Chicago Dramatists, Victory Gardens, Court, and Steppenwolf. She’s a fourth year candidate at Northwestern in the interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama and the inaugural Court Theatre Research Fellow.

EMMA'S BIO

Supporting Dramaturg

is thrilled to be working with Court Theatre for the first time on the Oedipus Trilogy. A member of Prop Thtr’s dramaturg pool, her recent Chicago dramaturgy credits include Pop Magic Productions’ Medusa and sections of RhinoFest 2019, both of which also featured Emma’s translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and selections from the Homeric and Orphic Hymns. Their translation of Euripides’ Bacchae has received readings in Los Angeles, Chicago, and the UK. Emma is a recent graduate of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s International MA and studied Classics and TAPS at the University of Chicago.

ELLA'S BIO

Assistant Dramaturg

Ella Wilhelm is a graduate student in Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the idea of the "fall-narrative" in 18th and 19th century German literature and thought. She is also interested in the theory and practice of drama and was the dramaturg and lead translator for a 2018 production of Heinrich von Kleist's The Broken Jug at the University of Chicago.