In Oedipus El Rey, Luis Alfaro's contemporary take on Sophocles's tragedy of patricide and incest currently playing at the Public Theater, the titular character is a recently released convict who finds himself in a "kingdom" of drugs, violence, and Chicano gangs in L.A. And Jocasta? Abused by her husband, she is a lonely woman of deep faith who finds love with Oedipus, a man who challenges her beliefs.

This isn't the first time Mexican-American Alfaro -- a playwright, director, teacher, social activist, and MacArthur "Genius Grant" winner -- has reimagined an ancient Greek drama through his cultural lens. In 2004 he wrote Electricidad: A Chicano Take on the Tragedy of Electra, and this past spring Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles opened at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he is the Mellon Playwright in Residence.

The California-born son of farmworkers, Alfaro is one of many artists of color using classics as a springboard for their own storytelling. Earlier this year, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins transformed the medieval morality play Everyman into Everybody at Signature Theatre Company, and Homer's The Odyssey was the inspiration for Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) . "I think it's in the water," says Alfaro, who adds that working with iconic texts allows modern-day playwrights to fuse the personal with the universal. "We are channeling these works and translating them to our times. They're helping me wrestle with larger cultural and big-scale issues: life, death, love in 90 minutes -- you get it all."

Chay Yew, who directs Oedipus El Rey, says updating these narratives helps keep them relatable. "Oftentimes when we see a classic play, a lot of people of color don't see themselves in these works," he says. 

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