Oedipus, Complexed

This year, I think I finally cracked the code on teaching Oedipus... or just cracked. Either way, my students have finally reported that they enjoyed their reading this year. I'm used to shock, horror, revulsion, and boredom, so I tried to at least eliminate the last thing from the list this year, and I think it worked.

Let me preface this by saying that I had an a-ha moment my first year of teaching with the girl playing Jocasta. She was the most ghetto of them all, in a mother-hen kind of way. I routinely heard her raising one eyebrow, telling a friend "Oh girl," or "Mm-Hum." like she was thirty years older than she actually was, and a light bulb went off. This entire time I had seen Jocasta as a tragic queen - some little lady, lovely, and doting on her husband, but this presented problems with the words she would say, and I never could 'hear' her. With this girl reading the lines, she was more like a cougar, telling her kid husband, "Don't worry 'bout a thing, honey-child. Those prophets don't know nothin' noway." It was perfect.

So this year, I begin teaching Oedipus, and I realize Jocasta's character isn't alone - the prophet's name is Teiresius, and Oedipus' relationship with Creon mainly consists on thug one-up-man-ship and 'yo mama jokes (no pun intended.) I explained that to my students, telling them to reach into the play to see Sophocles' inner thug, and for the first time, their quiz scores went up. When Oedipus and Creon fought in Monday's reading, I described it as, "So Creon's like, 'What 'cho sayin' now?' and Oedipus is like, 'I know you did-ent!' and the kids got it - albeit, a little differently than how Sophocles would have wanted it.

Would Sophocles like the retelling of Oedipus? Probably no more than he likes Freud's interpretation, but I think he would maybe appreciate the dusting off of his work and making it accessible to a new audience I doubt he ever thought would read his play. Besides, most of us don't remember Greek Drama in a positive light, like one of my kids' mothers who sent word through her daughter to tell me that she really enjoyed Oedipus this year.
"But ___, how did your mother read it?"
"Well, I thought it would read better in the ghetto voices, so I gave them funny voices at home and Mom heard me. She heard "murder", so she listened in."

I really wish I could have heard her version of the blinding scene...