OEDIPUS Reviews

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 11/13/25 at 9:50pm

At least this opening night isn’t being moved repeatedly without explanation!

Feldman says midnight embargo lift.

Updated On: 11/13/25 at 09:50 PM

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 11/13/25 at 10:16pm

I expect raves.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/13/25 at 11:52pm

Very Positive From Chicago Tribune

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/13/25 at 11:59pm

NY Stage Review

Oedipus: All About My Mother

By Melissa Rose Bernardo

★★★★☆ Lesley Manville and Mark Strong have disturbingly good chemistry as theater’s most famous twice-related couple

Oedipus: Fate Comes for Us All

By Frank Scheck

★★★★☆ Mark Strong and Lesley Manville deliver shattering performances in Robert Ickes’ modern adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:01am

NYT Critic's Pick from Alexis Soloski

‘Oedipus’ Review: An Election-Night Thriller, Suffused With Dread

Mark Strong and Lesley Manville are superb as a doomed political power couple in Robert Icke’s adaptation of the Sophocles tragedy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/theater/oedipus-review-strong-manville.html?searchResultPosition=2

"Manville, whose performance won her an Olivier for the play’s run in London’s West End, is an actress of exceptional emotional expressiveness, expert at repression and just as skilled at letting that composure slip, often wildly. Her Jocasta is chic, charming and ambitious for her husband, an impeccable political wife.

She is also, as an Icke-enhanced back story shows, an anguished woman who has had to deny and disregard much of her past. While Sophocles is fundamentally incurious of what the taking of a child may do to a mother, Icke sticks his fingers right in that wound. As Jocasta moves from ignorance toward knowledge, fighting every new fact, Manville dismantles this woman’s carefully constructed identity, thread by thread, cell by cell. The questions of what does Jocasta know and when does she know it become the night’s true horror."

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:02am

I’m glad the Times is still capable of giving a critics pick to an actual good show. 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:03am

LA Times is positive

Mark Strong and Lesley Manville power Robert Icke’s sleek remake of ‘Oedipus’ on Broadway

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2025-11-13/review-theater-mark-strong-lesley-manville-robert-ickes-sophocles-oedipus-broadway

 

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:04am

3 1/2 stars from NYP

‘Oedipus’ review: Mark Strong and Lesley Manville are ferocious in a pulse-pounding Broadway tragedy

https://nypost.com/2025/11/13/entertainment/oedipus-review-mark-strong-lesley-manville-are-ferocious-in-pulse-pounding-broadway-tragedy

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:08am

Holdren in Vulture is mostly (?) positive. Or more positive than not?

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Cool Mom: Robert Icke Does Oedipus

Robert Icke, known for dramatic remakings of ancient plays, turns to Sophocles' 'Oedipus,' and his production, while not flawless, is vivid and potent.

"In this Oedipus—premiered in Dutch at Toneelgroep and then remounted in the West End with its current stars, Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, as the fated mother-and-son/wife-and-husband at its center—Icke puts an eleventh-hour monologue roughly the size and weight of a city bus in Jocasta’s mouth. It’s where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor—utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that—even she can’t quite mask the overwriting, the authorial frisson over putting this character through really bad things, but, you know, in order to demonstrate that they’re really bad.

It’s a shame, because this Oedipus, when it tries a little less hard, is also full of potency. Manville and Strong crackle together — their chemistry is steamy and genuine and, in some of the production’s best moments, after all terrible secrets have been revealed, so is their body-wracking devastation."

 

Updated On: 11/14/25 at 12:08 AM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:12am

TimeOut

Oedipus

4 out of 5 stars

Mark Strong and Lesley Manville shine in Robert Icke's version of the complex Greek tragedy.

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/oedipus-broadway-review-mark-strong-lesley-manville-robert-icke

 

"Icke’s Oedipus is continuously engaging and smart, and it is exceedingly well performed by a cast that also includes Teagle F. Bougere, Bhasker Patel and Ani Mesa-Perez as aides and employees. Where it runs up against a wall—as many modern adaptations of ancient texts do—is in trying to make the story function without gods and fates. The possibility of divine machinations is brought up in passing here and there, but inconclusively. (Antigone: “I don’t believe in gods, I don’t think.” Merope: “Makes no difference whether you believe in them or not. Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”) And that’s a particular problem for Oedipus, because the original play is about the backfiring impossibility of trying to avoid predestiny. "

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:14am

The Wrap's ever contrarian Hofler is negative

‘Oedipus’ Broadway Review: Mark Strong and Lesley Manville Make the Same Old Mistakes

A prestige theatrical event from London turns out to be more parody than tragedy

https://www.thewrap.com/oedipus-broadway-review-mark-strong-lesley-manville

 

"Manville disappoints. Except for her big Liz Taylor moment, her vocally weak Jocasta recedes into Hildegard Bechtler’s set design of a campaign office-suite. The Oedipus political machine has a real money-flow problem, apparently. Despite it being election night, various muscle men appear on stage to remove the rented office furniture. They can’t wait until the election results are announced?"

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:19am

MemorableUserName said: "Holdren in Vulture is mostly (?) positive. 

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Cool Mom: Robert Icke Does Oedipus

Robert Icke, known for dramatic remakings of ancient plays, turns to Sophocles' 'Oedipus,' and his production, while not flawless, is vivid and potent.

"In this Oedipus—premiered in Dutch at Toneelgroep and then remounted in the West End with its current stars, Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, as the fated mother-and-son/wife-and-husband at its center—Icke puts an eleventh-hour monologue roughly the size and weight of a city bus in Jocasta’s mouth. It’s where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor—utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that—even she can’t quite mask the overwriting, the authorial frisson over putting this character through really bad things, but, you know, in order to demonstrate that they’re really bad.

It’s a shame, because this Oedipus, when it tries a little less hard, is also full of potency. Manville and Strong crackle together —their chemistry is steamy and genuine and, in some of the production’s best moments, after all terrible secrets have been revealed, so is their body-wracking devastation."

Disagree with the "overwriting" comment.  And the show does not try too hard.   We did not feel this at all.   It's quite perfect in length, styling and writing.  The whole thing.

 

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:21am

Of course The Wrap's Hofler uses the "prestige theatrical event from London".  (eye roll)   He's one of the UK "prestige" (well reviewed) transfer haters.  

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 12:57am

DTLI Consensus: Run to Studio 54 to catch the motherf**king brilliant Mark Strong and Lesley Manville lead a game cast in a very great — if not quite flawless — Sophocles modernization.

10 positive (including the NYT), 3 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/oedipus/

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 7:32am

MemorableUserName said: "The Wrap's ever contrarian Hofler is negative

‘Oedipus’ Broadway Review: Mark Strong and Lesley Manville Make the Same Old Mistakes

A prestige theatrical event from London turns out to be more parody than tragedy

https://www.thewrap.com/oedipus-broadway-review-mark-strong-lesley-manville



"Manville disappoints. Except for her big Liz Taylor moment, her vocally weak Jocasta recedes into Hildegard Bechtler’s set design of a campaign office-suite. The Oedipus political machine has a real money-flow problem, apparently. Despite it being election night, various muscle men appear on stage to remove the rented office furniture. They can’t wait until the election results are announced?""

Basically, if Hofler hates something, run to see it immediately.

[1 Minute Critic]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 8:34am

1 Minute Critic - 4 stars

Icke has given himself the ultimate theatrical challenge: create tension when we already know the ending. The convention, for the most part, works brilliantly, thanks to Strong, Manville, and the acting company’s captivating performances. The contemporary setting draws parallels to real-life political and cultural controversies, from Prince Andrew's involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior to Princess Diana's death in a high-speed car crash.   

But unlike Trump’s obsession with gilding the people's house for his own amusement, Oedipus’s commitment to truth and transparency lures us toward a sense of authenticity. But his ultimate desire for power seals his fate. 

Full review HERE

 

[EvanstonDad]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 9:03am

This clip from the NYT (might be behind a pay wall) of Mark Strong and Lesley Manville performing a scene from Oedipus in the office of T Magazine is absolutely riveting. https://www.nytimes.com/video/t-magazine/100000010519946/live-from-the-10th-floor-a-scene-from-oedipus.html If I could I would drop money to see this in a heartbeat.

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 9:10am

I admire the restraint from reviewers in not describing the material as "Icky".

[Owen22]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 9:24am

MemorableUserName said: "Holdren in Vulture is mostly (?) positive. Or more positive than not?

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Cool Mom: Robert Icke Does Oedipus

Robert Icke, known for dramatic remakings of ancient plays, turns to Sophocles' 'Oedipus,' and his production, while not flawless, is vivid and potent.

"In this Oedipus—premiered in Dutch at Toneelgroep and then remounted in the West End with its current stars, Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, as the fated mother-and-son/wife-and-husband at its center—Icke puts an eleventh-hour monologue roughly the size and weight of a city bus in Jocasta’s mouth. It’s where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor—utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that—even she can’t quite mask the overwriting, the authorial frisson over putting this character through really bad things, but, you know, in order to demonstrate that they’re really bad.

It’s a shame, because this Oedipus, when it tries a little less hard, is also full of potency. Manville and Strong crackle together —their chemistry is steamy and genuine and, in some of the production’s best moments, after all terrible secrets have been revealed, so is their body-wracking devastation."
 

Thank you Sara. This play is SOOO overwritten!!! And boy does it try too hard!

 

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 10:09am

Owen22 said: "MemorableUserName said: "Holdren in Vulture is mostly (?) positive. Or more positive than not?

I’m Not a Regular Mom, I’m a Cool Mom: Robert Icke Does Oedipus

Robert Icke, known for dramatic remakings of ancient plays, turns to Sophocles' 'Oedipus,' and his production, while not flawless, is vivid and potent.

"In this Oedipus—premiered in Dutch at Toneelgroep and then remounted in the West End with its current stars, Lesley Manville and Mark Strong, as the fated mother-and-son/wife-and-husband at its center—Icke puts an eleventh-hour monologue roughly the size and weight of a city bus in Jocasta’s mouth. It’s where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor—utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that—even she can’t quite mask the overwriting, the authorial frisson over putting this character through really bad things, but, you know, in order to demonstrate that they’re really bad.

It’s a shame, because this Oedipus, when it tries a little less hard, is also full of potency. Manville and Strong crackle together —their chemistry is steamy and genuine and, in some of the production’s best moments, after all terrible secrets have been revealed, so is their body-wracking devastation."


Thank you Sara. This playis SOOO overwritten!!! And boy does it try too hard!

"

I don’t buy Holdren’s case that Icke's tilting of the narrative so forcefully towards the monologue that he wrote for Jocasta is some kind of male performative feminism. Well, then again, maybe…

Updated On: 11/14/25 at 10:09 AM

[rburton66]

Posted: 11/14/25 at 4:53pm

Has anyone gotten rush tickets for this? Just curious where the seats might be. 

[okfromthetop]

Posted: 11/15/25 at 12:29pm

a friend did rush and was in back orchestra

[gibsons2]

Posted: 11/15/25 at 12:47pm

I did rush for someone else and the ticket was rear mezz row G center 

[rburton66]

Posted: 11/15/25 at 8:25pm

Thank you both for the info!

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 11/15/25 at 8:40pm

Saw this today and wow. Icke's adaptation moves like a freight train, wonderfully physical staging.

And those performances! From 90-year-old Anne Reid (who stage doored!) to one of my favorite character actors John Carroll Lynch

Of course, the two leads are superb. Strong is a brilliant protagonist and Manville's final monologue brings down the house.