Relentless is the word for "Oedipus the King," with which Pittsburgh Public Theater opens its 32nd season.

	Jay Stratton as Oedipus, left, confronts Ed Hyland's Tiresias. Click photo for larger image. 'Oedipus the King' Where: Pittsburgh Public Theater. When: Through Oct. 29. Tues.-Sat. 8.pm.; Sun 2 and 7 p.m.; Oct. 11 noon; Oct. 29 only 2 p.m. Tickets: $34.50 to $53.50; 412-316-1600.

Its urgent rush is remarkable, considering that most already know this famous story, more than 24 centuries old, and that playwright Sophocles makes that doubly certain with prophecies, forebodings and other warnings, too obvious even to be called ironic. The format is that of a detective play in which a single-minded investigator drives relentlessly toward the truth that will destroy him.

And how does Sophocles manage to keep fresh this tale of the man who killed his father and bedded his mother? He does it by artfully twisting the path to truth, each turn seeming to offer an escape from the inevitable. Every witness Oedipus deposes begins with what he thinks is good news, and just as this adds a link to the chain that will eventually trap the investigator, a side issue leads to yet another witness who will bring his own damning link.

You couldn't keep up such a taut pace for long, so it's essential that "Oedipus" is brief -- just 70 minutes, perhaps a shade less, depending on the variable pulse of the cast or the laughs that provide some momentary relief (I think I counted six opening night).

There is relief also in the grandeur of James Noone's set and the assurance of the acting and direction, theatrical pleasures which color the urgency of the play with entertainment.

The 80-year-old translation by William Butler Yeats has its own fresh sound, almost entirely free of those klunky passages once mercilessly parodied by A.E. Houseman. So it feels at home on Noone's set, which backs a marble forestage with marble steps leading up to a soaring doorway of marble, wood and glass. It could be the National Bank of Thebes or a modern house of government, but it suggests an ancient palace, too.

Behind that door is a high, black, reflective wall. And surrounding the forestage (centered on an archaic stone altar/fire pit for worship) are we, the audience.

We are certainly part of the story, since Oedipus addresses us constantly as the people of Thebes, his care but also his judges. For all its echoes of mythological fate, this is the drama of a government leader striving with his demons in public. Inevitably it brings to mind some modern leaders, accepting or rejecting personal blame, threatening torture, quick to take refuge in denial.

That denial is what makes it dramatic, of course. As they say, the coverup can be worse than the crime. Oedipus is quick to suspect conspiracy, but his mother/wife Jocasta is quicker to see the awful truth.

Director Ted Pappas drives the story with economy but also with a vivid visual sense, drawing on his choreographic background to resist any sense of talking statues. He skillfully uses the chorus to focus the story, although the one formal dance they do, however authentic, feels a shade self-conscious, caught between sacred and profane.

Darren Eliker, Jeffrey Howell, Daniel Krell, Doug Mertz and Joe Warik make up this sober, well-spoken chorus of five, dressed in dark business suits like a band of impassioned accountants, which in effect they are. They are usually joined by a priest, Mark Thompson.

Chief witnesses to Oedipus' past are the blind prophet Tiresias, played with craggy force by Edward James Hyland; Alex Coleman, a stalwart old messenger from Corinth who supplies most of those laughs; and Doug Pona, a grizzled herdsman who is the classic example of no good deed going unpunished. All are perfectly in scale, from Hyland's anger to Coleman's and Pona's simplicity. So are the play's three children, as Tiresias' boy and Oedipus' daughters.

Brian Barefoot has a sinuous insistence in the flashy role of the messenger who describes the bloody offstage outcome, and Michael McKenzie is clear and forceful as the self-justifying Creon, showing some of the political slipperiness that will appear in Sophocles' subsequent play, "Antigone."

Which brings us to the queen, Jocasta, really a supporting role but made vivid by Helena Ruoti. There's a hint of those fearsome 20th-century political women defending their besieged husbands (supply your own names), before that gives way to the mother/wife overcome by horror.

Jay Stratton's Oedipus is a plausible king-as-CEO, young, but not so young as Pittsburgh's mayor since he has teenage sons. He is very well spoken and flashes the famous Oedipus anger, which is, of course, the root of his trouble and perhaps of his charisma.

A powerful role is played by Zach Moore's sound design, which interweaves Greek musical motifs with the sounds of nature and has the tact to choose silence when silence rings loudest.

Opening night, Pappas gave a pre-show introduction to the play which was part advertisement, part education. I'm not sure what I think of that. A play must speak for itself, of course, but it is also natural for an artistic director to want to speak about his new season.

This "Oedipus" is certainly a theatrical luxury, using 16 actors, a towering set and all the well-staffed resources of Pittsburgh's most richly supported theater company to tell a familiar story in just 70 minutes. I felt a momentary wish that they would keep going and complete the story with "Oedipus at Colonnus," in which tragedy turns into spiritual blessing.

But perhaps "Oedipus" is that, all by itself. And the spendthrift transience of theatrical art makes it the more precious.