Oedipus and Jocasta Drew Customers at $25 a Head Not So Long Ago--Sophocles Scored Smash in Cambridge of 1881

The approaching New York production of Sophocles' "Electra", which is to take place on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House on May 3, and 4, recalls memories of the first time a Greek tragedy was played on an American stage, when in 1881 Harvard undergraduates produced Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex".

The history of the staging of Greek tragedies goes back to about 1850, when Thomas De Quincey described the first Greek play to be produced in Great Britain as the "next best thing to having seen Waterloo at sunset on the 18th of June, 1815."

It was not until 1876, however, that the presentation of a Greek tragedy was given any serious consideration in America. The discussion arose chiefly at Harvard, but the difficulties to be surmounted were so great that the project fell through.

A few years later, however, the tremendous enthusiasm, which greeted a London production of "Agamemnon" by Oxford students again, aroused the interest of Harvard men. So it was, that in the fall of 1880, work was started on "Oedipus Rex", a unanimous decision having been made in favor of the famous tragedy of Sophocles.

For a period of five months, rehearsals were held three or four times a week, while during the six weeks immediately preceding the public performances, rehearsals were held every day.

When the play was finally ready, it drew an astounding amount of attention for a drama to be produced entirely in the classical Greek. Speculators offered as much as 625 for a ticket to the closing performance of the play. The box office line formed 18 hours before the first tickets were to be placed on sale. There was, moreover, an unusually distinguished first night audience which included, besides editors, high court officials, and educators too numerous to mention, Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Curtis, and Howell.

Six thousand persons were present at the performances, and, in spite of the fact that only a comparatively small number of people in the audiences could understand Greek, their interest was caught and held by the relentless sweep of the tragedy of the unhappy king. There were so many students who desired to see the play, but who were unable to get tickets, that the committee in charge allowed them to attend the dress rehearsal.