The Gospel at Colonus [DVD] / directed [for television] by Kirk Browning ; produced by David Horn & Yvonne Smith ; adapted and directed for the stage by Lee Breuer ; music composed, arranged & conducted by Bob Telson ; a production of WNET/Thirteen, in association with Bioscope, Inc. ; Educational Broadcasting Corp.
Morgan Freeman, Clarence Fountain, Isabell Monk, Carl Lumbly, Robert Earl Jones, Jevetta Steele, Kevin Davis, Martin Jacox. Musical groups: Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, J.J. Farley and the Original Soul Stirrers, The J.D. Steele Singers, The Institutional Radio Choir, The Colonus Messengers. Recorded live in 1985 at The American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, Pa. First shown as an episode of the television program Great performances in 1985. "Based on an adaptation of Sophocles' 'Oedipus at Colonus' in the version by Robert Fitzgerald and incorporating passages from both Sophocles' 'Oedipus Rex' and 'Antigone' in the versions by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, which are published as 'The Oedipus cycle of Colonus'" -- Closing credits.
Summary:
Told from the perspective of a Black Pentecostal preacher and his congregation, this play dramatizes legendary Greek character Oedipus' last days on Earth. Having blinded himself out of guilt, Oedipus makes a solace-seeking pilgrimage to Colonus, the place where he believes he is meant to die. Primarily through song, the preacher and his congregation translate this story of redemption into a Christian parable.
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