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In 2022, Getty Villa’s annual outdoor theater show, which – in keeping with the Romanesque museum’s décor and displays – are devoted to staging ancient Greek and Roman theater, mounted Sophocles’ Oedipus, about the ill-fated Theban king who, unwittingly, slew his father and married his mother. (Whoopsy!) Now, in that grand show biz tradition of “sequels,” this year Getty Villa is presenting a highly idiosyncratic version of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. Which chronologically is the second part of dramatist’s Oedipal trilogy (with Antigone being his grand finale). The 17th annual Villa Outdoor Classical Theater production is entitled The Gospel at Colonus, an unlikely hybrid of Greek tragedy and African American gospel music and spirituality.

According to writer/director Howard Skora’s Freud on Cocaine, during the early days of his career Sigmund Freud was an avid user of and experimenter with coke – if, but of course, for mainly professional purposes. Indeed, there is substantial evidence to support Skora’s contention, notably Dr. Freud’s own writings, such as his 1884 The Cocaine Papers. This subject has previously been dramatized, especially in the wonderful 1976 feature The Seven-Percent-Solution, starring Alan Arkin as a rather compassionate founder of psychoanalysis, who helps Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) overcome his addiction to cocaine (see the trailer at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075194/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_0_q_The%2520Seven%2520Percent%2520Solution).