Entertainment
Review: Mark Strong and Lesley Manville power Robert Icke’s sleek remake of ‘Oedipus’ on Broadway
It’s election night in Robert Icke’s “Oedipus,” a modern retelling of Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” that must be the buzziest, if not the chicest, Broadway offering of the fall season.
The production, a prestigious London import that opened at Studio 54 on Thursday under Icke’s smart and sleek direction, stars a charismatic Mark Strong in the title role. His elegant and urbane Oedipus, a politician on the cusp of a momentous victory, prides himself on not playing by the old rules. A straight talker who has made transparency his calling card, he frequently veers off script in paroxysms of candor, to the chagrin of Creon (John Carroll Lynch), his brother-in-law who has been steering the campaign to what looks like a landslide victory.
But “count no mortal happy till / he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain,” as the chorus intones at the end of Sophocles’ tragedy. There is no chorus in Icke’s version, but the sentiment holds, as Oedipus unravels the puzzle of his identity with the same relentlessness that has brought him to the brink of electoral triumph.
Anne Reid, left, and Olivia Reis in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
A birther conspiracy has been raised by his political opponent, and Oedipus, speaking impromptu to reporters on-screen at the start of the play, promises to release his birth certificate and put an end to the controversy. What’s more, he vows to reopen an investigation into the death of Laius, the former leader who died 34 years ago under circumstances that have allowed rumor and innuendo to fester.
Oedipus calls himself Laius’ “successor, the inheritor of his legacy,” and in true Sophoclean fashion he speaks more than he knows. Jocasta (Lesley Manville in top form), Oedipus’ wife, was married to Laius, and so Oedipus is occupying his predecessor’s place in more ways than one.
In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus confronts a plague that has been laying waste to Thebes. In Icke’s drama, which had its premiere in Amsterdam in 2018, the pathogen is political. The civic body has fallen ill. Oedipus sees himself as an answer to the demagogic manipulation that has wrought havoc. The water is poisoned, economic inequality is out of control and immigrants have become an easy target. Sound familiar?
Icke’s Oedipus has an Obama-level of confidence in reason and reasonableness. His direct, pragmatic approach has seduced voters, but has it deluded him into thinking that he has all the answers? Oedipus is an ingenious problem solver. Puzzles entice his keen intellect, but he will have to learn the difference between a paradox and a riddle.
Mark Strong, left, and Samuel Brewer in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
His daughter, Antigone (Olivia Reis), a scholar who has returned for her father’s big night, ventures to make the distinction: “One’s got a solution — one’s just something you have to live with?” But Oedipus is in no mood for academic hairsplitting.
A countdown clock marks the time until the election results will be announced. That hour, as audiences familiar with the original tragedy already know, is when Oedipus will discover his true identity.
Merope (Anne Reid), Oedipus’ mother, has unexpectedly turned up at campaign headquarters needing to speak to her son. Oedipus fears it has something to do with his dying father, but she tells him she just needs a few minutes alone with him. Thinking he has everything under control, he keeps putting her off, not knowing that she has come to warn him about revealing his birth certificate to the public.
The handling of this plot device, with the canny veteran Reid wandering in and out of the drama like an informational time bomb, is a little clumsy. There’s a prattling aspect to Icke’s delaying tactics. His “Oedipus” is more prose than poetry. The family dynamics are well drawn, though a tad overdone.
Mark Strong and the cast of “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
Reid’s Merope and Reis’ Antigone, ferocious in their different ways, refuse to play second fiddle to Manville’s Jocasta when it comes to Oedipus’ affections. Manville, who won an Olivier Award for her performance in “Oedipus,” delivers a performance as sublimely seething as her Oscar-nominated turn in “Phantom Thread.” Endowed with a formidable hauteur, her Jocasta acts graciously, but with an unmistakable note of condescension. As Oedipus’ wife, she assumes sexual pride of place, which only exacerbates tensions with Merope and Antigone.
Oedipus’ sons, Polyneices (James Wilbraham) and Eteocles (Jordan Scowen) are given personal backstories, but there is only so much domestic conflict that can be encompassed in a production that runs just under two hours without interruption. And Polyneices being gay and Eteocles being something of a philander would be of more interest in an “Oedipus” limited series.
When Sophocles’ tragedy is done right, it should resemble a mass more than a morality tale. Oedipus’ story has a ceremonial quality. The limits of human understanding are probed as a sacrificial figure challenges the inscrutable order of the universe. Icke, who views classics through a modern lens (“Hamlet,” “1984”), is perhaps more alert to the sociology than the metaphysics of the tragedy.
Oedipus’ flaws are writ large in his rash, heated dealings with anyone who stands in his way. Icke transforms Creon into a middle-of-the-road political strategist (embodied by Lynch with a combination of arrogance and long-suffering patience) and blind Teiresias (a stark Samuel Brewer) into a mendicant psychic too pathetic to be a pariah.
Mark Strong and Lesley Manville in “Oedipus.”
(Julieta Cervantes)
But Oedipus’ strengths — the keenness of his mind, his heroic commitment to truth and transparency — mustn’t be overlooked. Strong, who won an Olivier Award for his performance in Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge,” exposes the boyish vulnerability within the sophisticated politician in his sympathetically beguiling portrayal.
Wojciech Dziedzic’s costumes remake the protagonist into a modern European man. Yet true to his Ancient Greek lineage, this Oedipus is nothing if not paradoxical, suavely enjoying his privilege while brandishing his egalitarian views.
The production takes place on a fishbowl office set, designed by Hildegard Bechtler with a clinical and wholly contemporary austerity. The furnishings are removed as the election night draws to its conclusion, leaving no place for the characters to hide from the unwelcome knowledge that will upend their lives.
What do they discover? That everything they thought they understood about themselves was built on a lie. For all his brilliance, Oedipus was unable to outrun his fate, which in Icke’s version has less to do with the gods and more to do with animal instincts and social forces.
When Oedipus and Jocasta learn who they are to each other, passion rushes in before shame calls them to account. Freud wouldn’t be shocked. But it’s not the psychosexual dimension of Icke’s drama that is most memorable.
The ending, impeded by a retrospective coda, diminishes the full cathartic impact. But what we’re left with is the astute understanding of a special kind of hubris that afflicts the more talented politicians — those who believe they have the answers to society’s problems without recognizing the ignorance that is our common lot.
In 1977, a man named Tony Kiritsis fell behind on mortgage payments for an Indianapolis, Indiana, property that he hoped to develop into an affordable shopping center for independent merchants. He asked his mortgage broker for more time, but was denied. This enraged him because he suspected that the broker and his father, who owned the company, were conspiring to defraud him by letting the property go into foreclosure and acquire it for much less than market value. He showed up at the offices of the mortgage company, Meridian, for a scheduled appointment regarding the debt in the broker’s office, where he took the broker, Richard O. Hall, hostage, and demanded $130,000 to settle the debt, plus a public apology from the company. He carried a long cardboard box containing a shotgun with a so-called dead man’s wire, which he affixed to Hall as a precaution against police interference: if either of them were shot, tackled, or even caused to stumble, the wire would pull the trigger, blowing Hall’s head off.
That’s only the beginning of an astonishing story that has inspired many retellings, including a memoir by Hall, a 2018 documentary (whose producers were consultants on this movie) and a podcast drama starring Jon Hamm as Tony Kiritsis. And now it’s the best current movie you likely haven’t heard about—a drama from director Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting”), starring Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis and Dacre Montgomery as Richard Hall. It’s unabashedly inspired by the best crime dramas from the 1970s, including “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Sugarland Express,” “Network,” and “Badlands,” and can stand proudly alongside them.
From the opening sequence, which scores the high-strung Tony’s pre-crime prep with Deodato’s immortally groovy disco version of “Thus Spake Zarathustra” played on the radio by one of Tony’s local heroes, the philosophical DJ Fred Temple (Colman Domingo); through the expansive middle section, which establishes Tony as part of a thriving community that will see him as their representative in the one-sided struggle between labor and capital; through the ending and postscript, which leave you unsure how to feel about what you’ve seen but eager to discuss it with others, “Dead Man’s Wire” is a nostalgia trip of the best kind. Rather than superficially imitate the style of a specific type of ’70s drama, Van Sant and his collaborators connect with the essence of what made them powerful and memorable: their connection to issues that weighed on viewers’ minds fifty years ago and that have grown heavier since.
Tony is far from a criminal genius or a potential folk hero, but thinks he’s both. The shotgun box with a weird bulge, barely held together with packing tape, is a correlative of the mentality of the man who carries it. His home is filled with counterculture-adjacent books, but he’s a slob who loudly gripes during a brief car ride that his “shorts have been ridin’ up since Market Street,” and has a vanity license plate that reads “TOPLESS.” His eloquence runs the gamut from Everyman acuity to self-canceling nonsense slathered in profanity . He accurately sums up the mortgage company’s practices as “a private equity trap” (a phrase that looks ahead to the 2008 financial collapse, which was sparked by predatory lending on subprime mortgages) and hopes that his extreme actions will generate some “some goddamn catharsis” for himself and his fellow citizens, and “some genuine guilt” among Indianapolis’ lending class.
He’s also intoxicated by his sudden local fame. The hostage situation migrates from the mortgage company to Tony’s shabby apartment complex, which is quickly surrounded by beat cops, tactical officers, and reporters (including Myha’La as Linda Page, a twenty-something, Black local TV correspondent looking to move up. Tony also forces his way into the life of his idol Temple, who tapes a phone conversation with him, previews it for police, and grudgingly accepts their or-else request to continue the dialog and plays their regular talks on his morning show.
Despite these inroads, Tony is unable to prevent his inner petty schmuck from emerging and undermining his message, such as it is. He vacillates between treating Hall as a useless representative of the financial elite (when the elder Hall finally agrees to speak with Tony via phone from a tropical vacation, Tony sneers to Hall the younger, “Your daddy’s on the line—he wants to know when you’ll be home for supper!”) and connecting with him on a human level. When he’s not bombastic, he’s needy and fawning. “I like you!” he keeps telling people he just met, but Fred most of all—as if a Black man who’d built a comfortable life for himself and his wife in 1977 Indiana could say no when an overwhelmingly white police force asked him to become Tony’s fake-confidant; and as if it matters whether a hostage-taking gunman feels warmly towards him.
Ultimately, though, making perfect sense and effecting lasting change are no higher on Tony’s agenda than they were for the protagonists of “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Network.” Like them, these are unhinged audience surrogates whose media stardom turned them into human megaphones for anger at the miserable state of things, and the indifference of institutions that caused or worsened it. These include local law enforcement, which—to paraphrase hapless bank robber Sonny Wirtzik taunting cops in “Dog Day Afternoon”—wanna kill Tony so bad that they can taste it. The discussions between Indianapolis police and the FBI (represented by Neil Mulac’s Agent Patrick Mullaney, a straight-outta-Quantico robot) are all about how to set up and take the kill shot.
The aforementioned phone call leads to a gut-wrenching moment that echoes the then-recent kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, when hostage-takers called their victim’s wealthy grandfather to arrange ransom payment, and got nickel-and-dimed as if they were trying to sell him a used car. The elder Hall is played by “Dog Day Afternoon” star Al Pacino, inspired casting that not only officially connects Tony with Wirtzik but proves that, at 85, Pacino can still bring the heat. The character’s presence creeps into the rest of the story like a toxic fog, even when he’s not the subject of conversation.
With his frizzy grey toupee, self-satisfied Midwest twang, and punchable smirk, Pacino is skin-crawlingly perfect as an old man who built a fortune on being good at one thing, but thinks that makes him a fountain of wisdom on all things, including the conduct of Real Men in a land of women and sissies. After watching TV coverage of Tony getting emotional while keeping his shotgun on Richard, Jr., he beams with pride that Tony shed tears but his own son didn’t. (Kelly Lynch, who costarred in another classic Van Sant film about American losers, “Drugstore Cowboy,” plays Richard, Sr.’s trophy wife, who is appalled at being confronted with irrefutable evidence of her husband’s monstrousness, but still won’t say a word against him.)
Van Sant was 25 during the real-life incidents that inspired this movie. That may partly account for the physical realism of the production, which doesn’t feel created but merely observed, in the manner of ’70s movies whose authenticity was strengthened by letting the main characters’ dialogue overlap and compete with ambient sounds; shooting in existing locations when possible, and dressing the actors in clothes that looked as if they’d been hanging in regular folks’ closets for years. Peggy Schnitzer did the costumes, Stefan Dechant the production design, and Arnaud Poiter the cinematography, all of which figuratively wear bell-bottom pants and platform shoes; the soundscape was overseen by Leslie Schatz, who keeps the environments believably dense and filled with incidental sounds while making sure the important stuff can be understood. It should also be mentioned that the film’s blueprint is an original script by a first-timer, Adam Kolodny, with a bona-fide working class worldview; he wrote it while working as a custodian at the Los Angeles Zoo.
More impressive than the film’s behind-the-scenes pedigree is its vision of another time that unexpectedly comes to seem not too different from this one. It is both a lovingly constructed time machine highlighting details that now seem as antiquated as lithography and buckboard wagons (the film deserves a special Oscar just for its phones) and a wide-ranging consideration of indestructible realities of life in the United States, which are highlighted in such a way that you notice them without feeling as if the movie pointed at them.
For instance, consider Tony’s infatuation with Fred Temple, which peaks when Tony honors his hero by demonstrating his “soul dancing” for his hostage, is a pre-Internet version of what we would now call a “parasocial relationship.” An awareness of racial dynamics is baked into this, and into the film as a whole. Domingo’s performance as Temple captures the tightrope walk that Black celebrities have to pull off, reassuring their most excitable white fans that they understand and care about them without cosigning condescension or behavior that could escalate into harassment. Consider, too, the matter-of-fact presentation of how easy it is for violence-prone people to buddy up to law enforcement officers, especially when they inhabit the same spaces. When Indianapolis police detective Will Grable (Cary Elwes) approaches Tony on a public street soon after the kidnapping, Tony’s face brightens as he exclaims, “Hi Mike! Nice to see you!”
And then, of course, there’s the economic and political framework, which is built with a firm yet delicate hand, and compassion for the vibrant messiness of life. “Dead Man’s Wire” depicts an analog era in which crises like this one were treated as important local matters that involved local people, businesses, and government agents, rather than fuel for a global agitprop industry posing as a news media, and a parasitic army of self-proclaimed influencers reycling the work of other influencers for clout. Van Sant’s movie continually insists on the uniqueness and value of every life shown onscreen, however briefly glimpsed, from the many unnamed citizens who are shown silently watching news coverage of the crisis while working their day jobs, to Fred’s right hand at the radio station, an Asian-American stoner dude (Vinh Nguyen) with a closet-sized office who talent-scouts unknown bands while exhaling cumulus clouds of pot smoke.
All this is drawn together by Van Sant and editor Saar Klein in pop music-driven montages that show how every member of the community depicted in this story is connected, even if they don’t know it or refuse to admit it. As John Donne put it, “No man is an island/Entire of itself/Each is a piece of the continent/A part of the main.” The struggle of the individual is summed up in one of Fred’s hypnotic radio monologues: “Let’s remember to become the ocean, not disappear into it.”
Entertainment
‘Sinners,’ ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Hamnet’ among 2026 Producers Guild of America nominees
The Oscar race for best picture came into clearer focus as the Producers Guild of America announced its annual nominees for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award on Friday morning. The 10 nominees (full list below) represent established Oscar-season contenders like “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Hamnet” and “Marty Supreme,” as well as a handful of films whose awards footing is less certain, including “Weapons,” “F1” and “Bugonia.”
The Producers Guild Awards are considered one of the most reliable bellwethers in the Oscar race because their preferential ballot closely mirrors the academy’s best picture voting system. The PGA Awards have named the future best picture winner in 17 of the last 22 years. Last year, eight of the 10 PGA nominees went on to receive best picture Oscar nominations, including Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which ultimately won both prizes.
Winners will be announced at the PGA’s awards ceremony on Feb. 28 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Century City.
See the full list of nominees below:
Darryl F. Zanuck Award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures
“Bugonia”
“F1”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sentimental Value”
“Sinners”
“Train Dreams”
“Weapons”
Award for outstanding producer of animated theatrical motion pictures
“The Bad Guys 2”
“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle”
“Elio”
“KPop Demon Hunters”
“Zootopia 2”
Norman Felton Award for outstanding producer of episodic television — drama
“Andor”
“The Diplomat”
“The Pitt”
“Pluribus”
“Severance”
“The White Lotus”
Danny Thomas Award for outstanding producer of episodic television — comedy
“The Bear”
“Hacks”
“Only Murders in the Building”
“South Park”
“The Studio”
David L. Wolper Award for outstanding producer of limited or anthology series television
“Adolescence”
“The Beast in Me”
“Black Mirror”
“Black Rabbit”
“Dying for Sex”
Award for outstanding producer of televised or streamed motion pictures
“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”
“The Gorge”
“John Candy: I Like Me”
“Mountainhead”
“Nonnas”
Award for outstanding producer of nonfiction television
“aka Charlie Sheen”
“Billy Joel: And So It Goes”
“Mr. Scorsese”
“Pee-wee as Himself”
“SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night”
Award for outstanding producer of live entertainment, variety, sketch, standup and talk television
“The Daily Show”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special”
Award for outstanding producer of game and competition television
“The Amazing Race”
“Jeopardy!”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race”
“Top Chef”
“The Traitors”
Movie Reviews
Controversy Surrounds ‘The Raja Saab’ as Makers Allegedly Offer Money for Positive Reviews | – The Times of India
Prabhas-starrer ‘The Raja Saab’ is currently running in theaters; the much-awaited film was released today. The early reviews of the Maruthi-directed film have been receiving mixed to negative reviews on social media. However, a netizen has claimed that the makers of the film offered him money to delete his negative review.
Netizen alleges bribe by the makers
On Friday morning, an X user named @BS__unfiltered posted a screenshot online. He said he received a message from the official account of ‘The Raja Saab’ after posting his review. According to him, the film’s team offered him Rs 14,000. They reportedly asked him to post a positive review of the movie instead. Sharing the screenshot, the user wrote, “What the hell mannnnn!!!! They are offering me money to delete this!!! Nahi hoga delete #TheRajaSaab #Prabhas.” However, the screenshot shared by the user is in question for its authenticity and is not verified. At this time, it is not clear if the message was real or AI-generated. The claim is still unconfirmed.See More: The Raja Saab: Movie Review and Release Live Updates: Prabhas’ film to open big at the box office
Fans share their opinions online
Fans and netizens have been active on social media, sharing their opinions about the film. While some enjoyed it, many expressed disappointment. Another internet user wrote, “A horror-fantasy with a good idea but weak execution. Prabhas gives an energetic & comical performance, & the face-off with Sanjay Dutt is the main highlight. The palace setting is interesting at first, but the messy screenplay, dragged 2nd half, uneven VFX, & weak emotional payoff reduce the impact. @MusicThaman’s music & sounding are one of the positives. From the end of the first half, the story becomes slightly interesting. There are 3 songs featuring Prabhas & @AgerwalNidhhi. Nidhhi has performed well. Some scenes feel unintentionally funny, & the climax fails to impress. Overall, a one-time watch at best. This film gives a lead for The Raja Saab Circus—1935 (Part 2), where we may see Prabhas vs. Prabhas.”
About ‘The Raja Saab’
‘The Raja Saab’ is directed and written by Maruthi. The film stars Prabhas in the lead role. The cast also includes Malavika Mohanan, Nidhhi Agerwal, Riddhi Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, and Boman Irani.
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