Oedipus (Dryden play) the construction of a play, the playwright is the "master-workman" who needs "many subordinate hands, many tools to his assistance", including "history, geography, or moral philosophy." The plot is the base of the building, the characters and their manners the sides of it. All parts must be fitted properly to the whole; every part is neatly tied in. "Oedipus, a Tragedy" was based on Sophocles's "Oedipus", but the original drama was crucially changed in several respects. Dryden and Lee add a subplot of secondary characters – a love story about Adrastus, prince of Argos, and Eurydice, Oedipus' daughter. Unlike Corneille,
Oedipus Rex Jean Cocteau in French and then translated by Abbé Jean Daniélou into Latin; the narration, however, is performed in the language of the audience. Oedipus rex was written towards the beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassical period, and is considered one of the finest works from this phase of the composer's career. He had considered setting the work in Ancient Greek, but decided ultimately on Latin: in his words "a medium not dead but turned to stone." Michael Pennington starred as Oedipus with Claire Bloom as Jocasta, Sir John Gielgud as Tiresias and John Shrapnel as Creon in Don Taylor's 1986 translation/adaptation