Rome: After nearly 1,500 years, it's show time again at the Roman Colosseum. Spectators are bustling into the ancient arena, performers are fending off stage fright. But the show this time is supremely civilised: Classical Greek tragedy instead of gladiators and gore. No howling Roman mobs, no snarling wild beasts. The National Theatre of Greece's striking production of Oedipus Rex christens an eight-year restoration of the Colosseum capped by the replacement of part of the arena's …showed first 75 words of 683 total…

…showed last 75 words of 683 total…stage. Modern Rome compounded the problem with an urban symphony of honking horns, airplanes overhead and ambulances wailing in the night. But, as one of the stars said, you don't play the Colosseum every day. A little background noise, a smallish stage and crummy acoustics are a small sacrifice. "You experience it once in a lifetime," Gaitanapoulou said, as she prepared to transform herself into Jocasta and stride onstage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute