A computer-interactive staging of the play “Oedipus” premiered at the Phoenix Theater.

The drama begins with young Oedipus playing a computer game. The audience follows the game on a large-format projection screen—thus, the computer game is part of the set and the plot. In it, the actor proceeds through a series of episodes from the life of young Oedipus in the form of game levels and interacts with avatars that personify characters from the story of Oedipus. At the end of this sequence—created with the game editor UNREAL—the virtual Oedipus arrives in a stage setting in which he departs from the virtual world and enters the actual on-stage scenery.

At the time of the performance, the three game-levels were available on the Internet, which enabled viewers to play them out on their own at home and at terminals in the Ars Electronica Center.

A Phoenix Theater Production; Director: Kaspar Erffa; Music: Spour/Obermaier; Set: Lindorfer; in cooperation with the Ars Electronica Futurelab