Antigone, played by Bernardine Mitchell, Polyneices played by Kevin Davis.

Sophocles is rolling over in his grave… the way a cat stretches out in the sun and purrs for pure pleasure. Thousands of years after his play Oedipus at Colonus was first performed (Hollywood didn’t invent the sequel; the Greeks loved trilogies), Lee Breuer and Bob Telson came along and reinvented it for an American audience, with a gospel choir as the chorus. So you don’t love gospel, and you don’t think you like Greek drama? Think again. This show will get under your skin, and lift you up by the hairs on the back of your neck. In fact, “Lift Him Up” (excitingly belted by soloist Carolyn Johnson-White) is one of the show’s final tunes—and lifted the audience to heaven as well as Oedipus. The show (both theater and concert, sermon and drama) is emotionally, and theatrically, cathartic. It was ecstatically received when it first appeared off Broadway in 1983, garnered Pulitzer and Tony nominations when it was on Broadway in 1990, and it remains powerful, surprising and moving in its 20^th anniversary-year revival.

Charles S. Dutton and The Blind Boys of Alabama appeared for two short weeks at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre this month, in the magnificent re-imagination of Sophocles’ rather melancholy story of blind Oedipus wandering to the end of his life with his daughters Ismene and Antigone to guide him. Maybe it’ ;s because the story is pensive that the evening is so uplifting—it starts low and ends on a high of hope, joy and fervor.

As you enter the Apollo theatre, the organ player (Butch Heyward) doodles on the keys. Gradually the choir members (The Abyssinian Baptist and Institutional Radio Choirs, under the direction of Prof. Butch Heyward) and musicians walk on, waving to each other and the audience, embracing and shaking hands. You know right away that you’re included in the show, that you’re to let it carry you away, not just observe it. The Greeks used the theater as a kind of church, too, a space where the ancient stories were told in ways that moved them and enlightened them. Rev. Dr. Earl F. Miller, who plays wise King Theseus, writes in the program notes: “In black preaching the preacher has to get outside of himself, or in church language, let the spirit take control… At some point in the sermon he has to lose his cool because he isn’t supposed to be in charge anyway. Black preaching is body and soul.”

The music takes control at several points during the evening; Jevetta Steele, as Ismene, had some of the most exhilarating songs that lived in her body and lifted her feet and our spirits off the stage. The Jubilee (“No Never” ;, led by Choragos—The Legendary Soul Stirrers: Willie Rogers, Ben Odom, Lloyd Moore, Gene Stewart—Oedipus and Choir) towards the end of Act I took the audience into a happy trance, clapping and pounding the seats. The quieter songs are just as effective: the choral ode (“Numberless are the World’s Wonders”), with soloists J.D. Steele, Jevetta Steele and the choir, reminds us that though man is wonderful “in the late wind of death he cannot stand.” It is haunting. “Lift Me Up,” Oedipus’ lament at the begging of Act II for his daughters, is strong, soulful blues in a minor key that had the audience shutting their eyes with pleasure and shaking their heads. Breuer’s book, which incorporates text by Robert Fitzgerald from all three plays in Sophocles’ trilogy (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone), is as apt and effective as Telson’s radiant music.

Don’t worry if it’s been a while since you’ve read Oedipus Rex —right at the top the Messenger (Charles S. Dutton), here re-imagined as a preacher, gives a sermon from “the book of Oedipus,” reminding us of how Oedipus unwittingly slew his father and married his mother, how his wife (and mother) Jocasta hanged herself when she learned she had married her own son, and how Oedipus then took her brooches and stabbed his eyes over and over again. After the Messenger’s welcome and quotations, Ismene (Jevetta Steele) and the choir sing the Invocation—“Live Where You Can” —an outstanding number with an exciting build (I remember first hearing it on Broadway years back and immediately looking to the back of the house to find out if the soundtrack was on sale!). Choir Director J.D. Steele is as much fun to watch as the choir is to listen to, his rhythmic arm movements and jumps adding visual punctuation to the music.

Oedipus himself is played by the Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Clarence Fountain (they switch off taking bits of the lyrics). That sounds confusing but isn’t; the Messenger always keeps the story’s narrative clear. There isn’t really a whole lot of story anyway. Basically, Oedipus, a lonely old man, wanders with daughter Antigone (Bernardine Mitchell) to Colonus, the holy resting place where it has been foretold he will die. Colonus also happened to be playwright Sophocles’ birthplace, and some consider the mood to be reflective of the aged Sophocles’ feelings about the future of Athens, and the accomplishments of his own life (he was 89 when he wrote it). Theseus, King of Athens, welcomes him. But Creon (Jay Caldwell), King of Thebes, comes to try to bring Oedipus back to his own land, kidnapping his daughters for leverage. Theseus returns them. Oedipus’ treacherous son Polyneices (Kevin Davis) also tries to get Oedipus’ blessing, but is refused. Oedipus’ mystical death, in which the earth swallows him and protects Athens forever, has a sad, redemptive glory.

All of the musicians are powerful performers, and some gospel music fans in the audience caught every nuance of their technique. The production is lovingly recreated: the costumes, based on original designs by Gretta Hynd, are witty and evocative—the choir’s robes have an African flavor, evil Creon has a too-sharp white suit, and his cronies wear fedoras. The set design by Alison Yerxa involves stair units and stools with faintly Greek lines. A white grand piano sits on a raised platform, and composer Bob Telson himself plays on another piano far upstage.

It’s a treat to see this show in the expansive space of the Apollo, and a joy to see it with an audience that clearly appreciates the musical idiom. My only complaint about the show is that its run was too short. Don’t miss it next time it’s in town.