Director: Choi Jae-Oh
Playwright: Sophocles
Institution: Chung-Ang University
Venue: National Academic Drama Theatre, Mongolia
Time: 14:00, May 20, 2016
Event: 4th Asian Theatre Schools Festival
Synopsis
"Humanism" since the Renaissance has taken place with respect to basic beliefs about humankind. The fact that the ancient Greek people have built a city-state called 'polis' and have conceived democracy as a primary form of government shows that they have considered their antecedents in human-centred philosophy.
Sophocles' <Oedipus the King> features a question about a 'human being' and this still remains unanswered among people of the 21st century. Instead of lethargically resisting to God's given fate, which is beyond human control that determines events, Oedipus leads himself to self-consciousness, thinking and acting based on his own knowledge. He suffers in between the all-powerful will of God and the vain efforts to search for his own identity.
Chung-Ang University's performance <Oedipus: The Son of Jocasta> has approached a human 'Oedipus' from a practical perspective; portraying Oedipus's life that is born to a mother and returns to his mother's womb. Various movements and images are conceptualized as my main text of the play rather than focusing on an unavoidable tragic fate predetermined by God.