Interview with the Sphinx

Summary

In this provocative & immensely irritating comic play, the Sphinx from ancient Greece is interviewed in modern times as though she were a celebrity pop star. The problem is she never answers any questions — never directly anyway. Instead she prefers just dishing the dirt on everybody. ON HOMER: “I never was exactly sure which one Homer was. I’m positive he wasn’t the blind one, though; that was just a silly story they started telling a few centuries later”. ON OEDIPUS: “Eddie was terribly conceited, you know … of course he was smart and handsome and, oh, just had a way of carrying himself that impressed everybody. In spite of his foot.” Bit by bit the Interviewer learns that what happens in Greek legend didn’t happen exactly the way Sophocles described it. Fortunately, the Sphinx offers the Interviewer another riddle … if only he could figure out what exactly it is! This witty 67 minute audio play stars Jill Brumer as the Sphinx and Neal Gage as the Interviewer. Part Tom Stoppard, part Monty Python, part Oscar Wilde, this play by Jack Matthews combines philosophical paradoxes with fast-paced verbal pyrotechnics. It offers the perfect antidote to people who remembered ancient literature as nothing but stuffy and melodramatic characters with hard-to-pronounce names. 

Neal Gage  is a Houston actor and teacher who has appeared in several features and comic sketch videos on Funny or Die. Jill Brumer has an MFA in Media & Performing Arts and teaches theater at Houston colleges. Jack Matthews (1925-2013) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright and former professor in Ohio.

The play was first published & performed in 1992; later it was revised & expanded for the 2013 audio production.