I postulate: The Lion King might be a wonderful time at the theater but nowhere in the evening do you feel uncomfortable or on edge because of the drama on stage. I felt damn uncomfortable, on edge and quite delighted at the Rattlesick Theater’s ‘retelling’ of Oedipus’, Blind.
The sublime Veanna Cox and the coiling intense Seth Numrich play a married royal couple basically making mince-meat of Takeshi Kata’s sumptuous ‘kingly’ bedroom set, trying (and eventually failing) to keep their shared fate at bay. There is…and then…and at the end… I can’t say much more without giving it all away. But whether you know the classic story or not, from the beginning of the play to the end, you are invested in the action at every turn, terrible admission, and horrific nihilistic circumstance.
Craig Wight does a masterful job retaining enough of the sense of the text that we are well rooted in the-all-too-familiar and tragic Oedipus tale but are still ‘contemporarily’ engaged with too with questions about fate and freedom and what one does when one has one and declares the other because of it. Lucie Tiberghien truly brings it all together with masterful direction, helping to imbibe the entire 80 minutes with just enough danger, the afore mentioned uncomfortable ness. In the end I don’t feel Blind could have been a minute shorter or a minute longer.
Blind plays to March 21st: Mon at 8pm, Wed-Sat at 8pm, and Sun at 3pm at the Rattlestick Theatre, 224 Waverly Place (off 7th S, between W11th and Perry Streets). Get tickets at smarttix.com
Ralph Greco, Jr.
