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If time travel ever becomes a reality, you’ll want to head back to 430 B.C.E. to check out an original performance of Oedipus. According to historians, Oedipus was quite the show—not to mention quite the religious celebration. Wait a second. Religious celebration? This Recap has the scoop.

Video Transcription:

If Oedipus Rex seems like an unremarkable play to you—or even just an ordinary one—that’s because you never had the pleasure of seeing it performed in Ancient Greece. I’ve got the 60-second download on Sophocles and his era, right after this.

In Sophocles’s time, a play like Oedipus would have been greeted with ecstasy. But all the emotional excitement wasn’t just because the audience knew how the play was going to end (which they did) or even because Greek theatre was a production with a capital P. Special effects, singing, dancing—these plays had it all.

No, the reason Sophocles’s audience would have been so ecstatic about Oedipus is because watching Oedipus was an act of worship. For real! The play was part of a religious festival celebrating the god Dionysus—a festival that called on the worshippers to exhibit an almost insane ecstasy. Which means that Oedipus was hardly a passive experience. Who knows which part was more fun—the play itself, or being an audience member.

One other thing about Sophocles and his time. If you’re wondering about all the god and prophecy stuff, remember this. In 430 B.C., the gods and prophets were actually under attack. So a play that celebrated the power of prophecy and of the gods would be no surprise for one of Greece’s leading playwrights. Sophocles probably wanted to justify the gods’ power, and Oedipus was the result.