It’s a 30-minute ballet telling the story of Jocasta at the end of Oedipus Rex, the Sophocles play which recently enjoyed a revival on Broadway. Just slightly uptown from that theater, at New York City Center, the Martha Graham Dance Company performed the work, which debuted in 1947, as the opening to program B of its centennial celebration. With its mid-century modernist costumes, sparse Isamu Noguchi set, and dramatic score by William Schuman, the production is Graham at peak Graham.

The narrative is clear and shown through simple, yet often dramatic emotional sequences: Jocasta collapsing in horror or writhing on a stone platform as Tiresias, the blind prophet, steps away, his staff echoing against the stage floor. Oedipus making a grand entrance and establishing his strong persona by balancing, partially, atop his mother’s shoulders. The pair, bound in their horrifying fate, tying themselves together at the hip with the rope that Jocasta will later wrap around her own neck. 

Xin Ying, as Jocasta, and Lloyd Knight, as Oedipus, have the pathos needed to pull off these highly dramatic roles; Graham’s choreography for the pair so often appears like a conversation that, if performed with a lesser degree of commitment, could fall flat. But it is the chorus that makes this work so electrifying: the “Daughters of the Night,” led by Marzia Memoli, move hypnotically, often facing sideways like figures on a frieze or amphora. While Ying and Knight carry the story forward, the chorus creates texture and elevates the emotional stakes, often casting out the heel of a palm as they twist their bodies in contrapposto or quivering their hands in front of their faces. When the piece ends, Ying on the floor and Ethan Palma, as Tiresias, stepping around her as the curtain falls, their absence is felt.