The handwritten script for Oedipus at Colonus
Video, 45 mins

Cassirer’s Oedipus: Distant Takes

At this live event, Dr Iona Hine and cast members discussed the process of turning Heinz Cassirer’s last work – an unpublished translation of Oedipus at Colonus – into an audio production.

The play was split into 11 chapters. Each chapter is accompanied by a piece of artwork produced by Rachael McNiven, for the H.W. Cassirer Collection.

About the project

Dr Iona Hine (School of English) had been digitising the works of the philosopher Heinz Cassirer when she discovered the unpublished script. Iona’s idea to get a local theatre group to record Cassirer’s lines gives us a unique opportunity to hear them and creates an invaluable digital resource for scholars.

The audio production

All 11 chapters of the audio production are available as a playlist on SoundCloud at the link below.

Listen on SoundCloud

Introducing Oedipus at Colonus: The last work of Sophocles and H.W. Cassirer

Credits

Research

The performance

  • Michael Newman as Oedipus
  • Julia Lockwood Byers as Antigone
  • Jim Buck as the Chorus, a collective of aged citizens of Colonus
  • David Stead as the Stranger, an unnamed inhabitant of Colonusand Polyneices
  • Bathsheba Lockwood Brook as Ismene
  • Chris Brook as Theseus
  • Mitchell Nuttall as Creon
  • And Jack Cadman Dennis as the Messenger
  • Post-production and editing by Ellie Pickersgill with the support of Rob Hemus, from the University of Sheffield’s Theatre Studies team.

Copyright

  • Original artwork by Rachael McNiven for Seventy Seven Creations.                                                                                                                     
  • This recording is copyright of the Cassirer Archive, University of Sheffield, 2020. The Archive exists thanks to the generosity of the late Ronald Weitzman, Heinz Cassirer’s friend and literary executor.

Curation

See also