In a city we never see, a lament drifts in from afar. It is Thebes, ravaged by the plague. A group of people has not slept for days. How can they save themselves? To whom can they turn to heal the dying city? At the center of the stage, at the center of the city, at the center of the theater stands Oedipus. He, who was able to unravel the Sphinx’s riddle with the light of his words, now faces the most difficult of questions: Who killed Laius, the old king of Thebes? The answer Oedipus is seeking is clear from the start, and it resounds in just two words: “It is you.” But Oedipus cannot bear such a great truth; he cannot face it. He prefers to look the other way. It will be the voice of Apollo—the hidden god, the elusive god—that guides him through an investigation in which the investigator himself will turn out to be the culprit. It will soon become clear that the doctor who was supposed to heal the city is the disease itself. For it is he, Oedipus, who is the murderer and thus the source of the contagion. The light of truth is the god’s gift, but also his curse.

“The most significant innovation in this adaptation of Sophocles’ text,” De Rosa states, “is having entrusted the same actor [two-time Ubu Prize winner Roberto Latini, ed.] with the roles of Tiresias and all the messengers. This is not merely a directorial device, but a way of bringing to the stage a character who, from time to time, represents a manifestation of the god Apollo, of his dark voice, of his oracles. [...] We must never cease to listen to these deities if it is true, as Plato says, that ‘the greatest gifts are given to men by the gods through madness.’ The birth—and perhaps even the destiny—of Western theater is undoubtedly linked to that madness.”