Oedipus Rec

Live Arts' first sold-out show ramps up Greek tragedy.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Aug 19, 2008

Jessica Kourkounis BACK TO THE GRIND: Longtime skater Josh Nims (left) says of the skater-chorus concept: "They're local folks reacting to the drama as it unfolds. They have mixed feelings about this unlucky guy looking to die in their space." (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

If you stand at Pattison Avenue and listen through the cool of the evening at The Lakes — South Philly's FDR Park — you can hear the echo of skateboard wheels clacking and whirring.

The screech of I-95 traffic, the noise reverberating off the metal of the interstate and the concrete of FDR Skate Park's ramps, hips and dips form their own brand of clusterfuck opera nightly.

It's here that actress, clown and first-time director Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey's Oedipus at FDR — the first sold-out show of Live Arts 2008 — occurs. The long-held idea of stretching the festival beyond its boundaries has found its stretchiest stretch ever at this 16,000-square-foot skate park, far removed from the fest's usual blocks and in the heart of Phillies country.

Delpech-Ramey's speed-wheeling deconstruction of Oedipus at Colonus goes beyond Sophocles' wandering gloom to find a future and newfound faith in this hard urban setting, with local skateboarders acting as the play's Greek chorus and its soundtrack consisting of dirty beats and skuzzy trip-hop spun through personal headphones.

"Apart from its pivotal moment — the end, the death — this Oedipus is about the theatrical style the space requires," says Delpech-Ramey, who, along with show writer Suli Holum, is a longtime Pig Iron Theatre alum. "When the chorus-skaters drop in on the beat and Oedipus and Antigone are threatened by them, the confrontation of the actors and the skaters sets the tone for the whole play. Tragedy comes in through the rhythm and the contradicting movement styles."

The myth meets the urban; the urban becomes mythical. For those lucky enough to have tickets, this Oedipus will shake I-95. And not just because the abrasive soundtrack by James Sugg and the claque of boarders will compete with the highway's noise.

"Face it," says Pearce Bunting, the Philadelphia actor entrusted by Delpech-Ramey with the title role. "Skateboarders, like Oedipus, are badass muthafuckas."

When Delpech-Ramey, a French-born Fringe stalwart with a bent toward emotional physical theater, first came in contact with Oedipus at Colonus, she was amazed by its mysterious description of death: "No heaven but an entrance in the invisible flesh of the atmosphere," Delpech-Ramey notes. "I liked that." In her mind, the blind, doomed Oedipus was a blessing to those around him, despite sending his sons to death in this play and all the father-killing, mother-fornicating stuff that came before it. "Oedipus doesn't become a blessing because he is a good man, but because he represents the ultimate suffering," she says.

Delpech-Ramey, whose friends call her "Manu," first came in contact with FDR's skate park when her husband, Joshua (a drummer and a teacher in the philosophy department at Villanova University), took her there. The first thing she saw was an amphitheater reminiscent of ancient Greek tradition. "The urban setting of graffiti and skating inspired me," she says. As soon as she re-read Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, she knew she had the space and concept — a chorus of skaters and actors physically interacting — for her retelling, a visceral and transcendent journey like the Greeks experienced, but relevant to modern audiences.

So, how to adapt a tale written in 406 B.C. for the present day? The key was finding a correlation between the world of skating and Oedipus' tale, something that merges theater, reality, faith and the power of the park.

"I wanted to write about skateboarding in a way that wouldn't make skaters roll their eyes," says Holum. "Manu and I had been chewing on the challenge of chorus in performance since we worked on The Tragedy of Joan of Arc."

Hiring skaters and actors and finding new ideas in staging and sound came next.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Delpech-Ramey brought in her favorite funnyman, Bunting, as the blind elder, after having seen him play Ansel in Theatre Exile's Killer Joe. "When Manu says you're a clown, you're a clown — I took that as the highest compliment. ... Clowns are the best actors for tragedy." 

On a journey to learn the rules of FDR Park, Delpech-Ramey found Josh Nims, operations manager for Schuylkill River Development Corp., an organization responsible for the development of Schuylkill Banks' skate parks. Nims has been skating since 1982 and is co-founder of skateboarding advocacy group Franklin's Paine. "I love theater, I love skateboarding and I love to challenge notions of what skateboarding is," says Nims, who thought the idea of a chorus of skaters was a perfect fit for classic tragedy. "They're local folks reacting to the action as it unfolds before them. They didn't ask for this drama to unfold in their space and they have mixed feelings about this really unlucky guy looking to die in their space."

Delpech-Ramey knows it is first the skaters' space. She had to work flexibly with skaters performing lines and listening to cues while on the move, while at the same time dealing with recreational skaters who had no part in the production. Sound designer Sugg faced a different challenge: how to deliver his music to an audience placed directly under I-95. Conrad Bender, Live Arts' tech director, came up with the idea of broadcasting on FM radio and giving the audience receivers and headphones. "More than most designs, this one's an enormous part of perception and comprehension of the experience," notes Sugg. "Because the sound is 'in your head,' the choices have to be right on the money."

Ultimately, beyond sights and sounds, it is the question that arises within Oedipus at Colonus — is he responsible for his actions, or are they foretold by the oracle and not by choice? — that concerns Delpech-Ramey. She cares about the invisible world and predestination, whether gods or monsters are pushing fate's hand. "I want to learn to respond to what life offers more than to create willful actions — as a person and an artist."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

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