Ola Rotimi's Nigerian rewrite of the Oedipus myth is not new to London: it was vividly staged by Yvonne Brewster at the Riverside Studios in 1989. But this lively revival by Femi Elufowoju jr, as part of the Africa 05 celebrations, is eminently justified in that it reminds us how a new spin can be put on an old tale.
Although Rotimi sets the action in 15th-century Nigeria, his play makes an urgently contemporary point: that man is responsible for his own actions. In graphic flashback we see how Odewale, elected leader of a war-stricken village, killed his predecessor in a dispute over a piece of land. Odewale may not have known the man was his father but he later confesses that the murder was motivated by his hot-headed tribal anger. The tragedy thus stems from individual action rather than divine destiny; it also gives the play a political dimension in that Rotimi, writing in 1968, was clearly creating an allegory about the disastrous Nigerian civil war.
But Rotimi's play also reminds us, in a neo-Shakespearean way, that tragedy is always heightened by contradictory comedy. You see this in Odewale's constant use of cryptic Aesopian proverbs on the lines of "the toad likes water but not when it is boiling". Most of all the crucial information about the past is provided not by some anonymous messenger but by a clownish farmer and old mate of Odewale's. As played by Nick Oshikanlu, he becomes the hilariously terrified interloper caught up in a nasty dynastic prophecy and understandably crying: "Let me eat in peace."
In place of an awesome study of malign fate we get a very human play about avoidable error. And, even if Elufowoju's production allows the actors to roam a little too restlessly around Ultz's circular matted space, there is a powerhouse performance from Mo Sesay as Odewale. He treats every prediction as a personal insult, brims with rage on being called a "bed-sharer" and exudes a sense of danger that marks him out as a potential Othello. Golda John as his maternal queen, Kwaku Ankomah as her vituperative son and Ann Ogbomo as a halting prophet all lend vigorous support. The result, even on a stifling evening, is a shared experience rather than a remote tragedy.
· Until July 2. Box office: 020-7503 1646.
