Plays of Sophocles

The Theban Plays retell a mythological tale already familiar to the Greeks. Why, then, would Athenians attend the performance of a play with a plot well known to them? The answer, of course, is that they wanted to see how the events unfolded and how they affected the principal characters. If you saw the movie Titanic or Pearl Harbor, you were probably aware ahead of time that the Titanic sank and that Pearl Harbor was left in smoking ruins. Nevertheless, you saw these movies anyway because you wanted to see the persons involved and the events leading up to the tragedies. Athenians approached Sophocles' plays in the same way: They wanted to see how Sophocles told the story with his his extraordinary writing and interpretive talents. .......The three Theban plays tell the continuing story of Oedipus and his daughter Antigone in the following order: (1) Oedipus Rex (also called Oedipus the King and Oedipus Tyrannus), (2) Oedipus at Colonus, and (3) Antigone. Because each play can stand alone as a separate dramatic unit and because Sophocles wrote the plays years apart and out of sequence, they technically do not make up a trilogy, although some writers refer to them as such. Most writers refer to them instead as "The Theban Plays." However, even this name is a misnomer, since the second play takes place at Colonus.