Ted Pappas is bursting with excitement. Granted, that's his usual mode in the job he loves as producing artistic director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater. But now, to open his seventh season, he's directing not just a classic but a Greek classic. And as he says, "It's nice to direct a play that is really better than its reputation as a masterpiece -- it's a really good show."

Jay Stratton has the title role in Pittsburgh Public Theater's "Oedipus the King." Click photo for larger image. "Oedipus the King" Where: Pittsburgh Public Theater at O'Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. When: Through Oct. 29; 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays; 2 p.m. Oct. 14, 21, 28; noon Oct. 4, 11; and 7 p.m. Oct. 24. Tickets: $33 to $52 (26 and under or full-time students $12, with some restrictions); 412-316-1600 or www.ppt.org.

"Oedipus the King," the Public calls it. What other play besides "Hamlet" could contend with it for the title of most famous play in the Western tradition?

The 429 B.C. tragedy by Sophocles is most often known as "Oedipus Rex" or "Oedipus Tyrannus" -- as though the decent obscurity of a foreign language could disguise its shocking story. The Public's translation is that by Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright William Butler Yeats, and its modern title is meant to join with modern costumes and a glass and steel set to sweep away any mustiness.

"You can hardly imagine how happy I am right now," says Pappas, building up a head of steam like a proselytizing prophet, "to be spreading the gospel! ... The Greek plays play to my strength as a director, with their movement and poetry and story-telling, their size and event."

He's determined not to "drape the play in history, but reveal it as a living work of art." James Noone's steel and glass set still conveys a sense of the ancient palace of Thebes, where Oedipus' and Jocasta's fates are inexorably revealed. Costumes, set, music, lighting and acting -- all, Pappas says, "refer to both modern and ancient."

In "Oedipus the King," Helena Ruoti plays Jocasta, with Darren Eliker, left, and Joe Warik in the chorus. Pittsburgh Public Theater's production runs through Oct. 29. Click photo for larger image.

This is Pappas' second Greek play at the Public, after Euripides' "Medea," staged just a few weeks after the real-life tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. He compares "Oedipus" for weight and universality to the Shakespeares he's directed. But there are contrasts:

"With Shakespeare, you feel he's embracing you. He's from the theater, taking care of the audience. With Sophocles, who's also a man of the theater, you feel he's pushing you toward something. The writing is solemn, intense and driven" -- and compact, since the play takes just the 70 or 80 minutes of real time that it represents. It happens like a thunderclap.

"I think my background as a Greek and understanding the language gives me a certain take," Pappas says. In preparation, he read about a dozen English translations, stopping to consult both ancient and modern Greek editions, reading passages aloud in Greek and even trying his own hand at some translation.

He chose the 1926 Yeats translation as closest to Sophocles. "Yeats is not only a man of the theater but a poet -- not a classicist with that sort of reverence; he was looking to put on a show."

The result appealed to another man of the theater, Laurence Olivier, who used it for the most famous 20th-century version, staged in London and New York in 1945-46.

Yeats made some deletions, some of which Pappas has restored. The result, he says, is "not some weird ghost story but [full of] craft and art and the spirit of theater." The common response to the early preview performances, he says, has been to wonder if it had been rewritten, since "it feels like it was written yesterday."

In his pursuit of the ancient within the modern (or is it the other way around?), Pappas spent much of his usual summer vacation at his family retreat in Greece doing research on the music. "There's a lot of music in the Greek plays, and a lot of movement." He and sound designer Zach Moore have "unearthed" a recorded score using Greek bagpipes, flutes and stringed instruments.

"It almost sounds Irish," he says -- as well it might, coming from another small, rocky, agricultural country with a great literary tradition, both countries sharing "the idea of men dancing and stomping."

Pappas loves its immediacy. "More than any play I've done, Sophocles includes the audience and insists it be part of the play ... more than in 'Medea,' where the audience is more voyeurs."

This sets him off on the familiar grouping of the big three tragic Greek playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. He points out they're really as different as Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and David Mamet, three other playwrights also using the same language in the same century.

Pappas claims pride in having found 13 of the 16 actors in his cast in Pittsburgh. This is a recognition of the growing professional Pittsburgh acting pool, or at least of Pappas' growing recognition of its abilities.

As if to answer any past complaints that he didn't attend enough to Pittsburgh, he says, "I always have my first auditions in Pittsburgh, and [for 'Oedipus'] I found almost everything I needed."

Mainly, he found his Jocasta, the tragic queen. He found her right where any Pittsburgher could have told him to look, in Helena Ruoti, who spent many years featured on the Public stage, and then, when that leadership changed, found a new home at City Theatre with occasional appearances at other professional companies, such as Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre.

"I was looking for a project for her," says Pappas. "I chose this show with her in mind. It's a wonderful welcome back to the Public for her," including what he calls "the most magnificent scene in all Western drama."

That's Jocasta's realization of the truth of her and Oedipus' history. It is possible only because of Sophocles' great innovation. Aeschylus had taken the reciting chorus and solitary interlocutor of primitive Greek theater and added a second individual, making modern dialogue possible. It was Sophocles who added a third actor -- here, Jocasta, listening in growing horror, as though in intense close-up, as a messenger reports to Oedipus.

The three imports in the cast are Jay Stratton (Oedipus), Michael McKenzie (Creon) and Edward James Hyland (Tyresias); the latter two have been at the Public before.

The Pittsburghers are Mark C. Thompson (Priest/Chorus), Alex Coleman (First Messenger), Doug Pona (Herdsman), Brian Barefoot (Second Messenger) and Darren Eliker, Jeffrey Howell, Daniel Krell, Doug Mertz and Joe Warik (all Chorus), plus Aidan Krell, Nadia Cook-Loshilov and Scarlet Sparke (children).

Demand for tickets has already been sufficient for the company to add two extra noon performances.