The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oilrig that killed 11 men and unleashed a torrent of oil into the gulf is a tragedy.

A Greek tragedy is a play in three acts. Act one sets the scene, act two brings it to a climax, and act three sees the final catastrophic resolution. All of this unfolds antagonist versus protagonist. As the drama develops the audience is meant to gasp with pity and cry in fear as they recognize the unmerited misfortune of the everyman hero.

But where are we in that tragedy? And why do the roles of antagonist and protagonist seem to be as difficult to define as the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico?

Until this week pushed the political circus in Washington into supercharge, the tragedy was about the Gulf coast. The protagonist was the people of the four Gulf States, shocked and hurt by the environmental catastrophe that the oil was spelling for their home while recognizing the importance and necessity of the oil industry. The antagonist was BP. The catastrophe of act three was still yet to unfold, but the impending hurricane season was casting a dark shadow over the stage.

But this week a new tragedy has begun. A tragedy that is threatening to, and arguably already has, taken primacy over the afore mentioned performance.

Act one was Obama’s address to the nation. Act two, the climax, the congressional hearing on Thursday. And act three continues to develop with the final resolution coming in November with the midterm elections. Whether that contains the catastrophic resolution required of a tragedy will depend on which side of the political fence you sit on.

As this is the problem. This new tragedy, The Tale of Two Parties lets call it, has continued to obscure the issue at hand.

When Joe Barton apologized to Tony Hayward at the congressional hearing this week, Tony Hayward was the most awkward figure in the room. He had prepared to be defensive (he actually didn’t say anything the whole day apart from ‘I don’t know’) and was wholly unprepared to be suddenly thrust into the role of embattled protagonist. And the role didn’t stick. Even if it had, the characterization would have been momentary as photos of a man who looked suspiciously like Hayward on board Hayward’s yacht at the Isle of Weight Yacht Race yesterday emerged. It is vice, as apposed to frailty of character, that distinguishes the antagonist from the protagonist in a Greek tragedy.

Barton’s performance maybe pushes the show to becoming a farce, as the neatly coifed Republican Representative returned to the stage hours after his first soliloquy to apologize for his apology. This time his hair was in disarray and he looked like he had been subjected to the Chicago style shakedown he had earlier accused the Obama administration of inflicting on BP. But his performance contains a serious message for the state of Washington in the way both Democrats and Republicans seized upon it.

Barton’s performance, commented NPR’s Ken Rudin, has come in the kick of time to rescue the Democrats: “Game, set, match,” said Rubin. White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, quickly brought the issue round to the midterms when he tweeted: “Who would the GOP put in charge of overseeing the energy industry & Big Oil if they won control of Congress? Yup, u guessed it – JOE BARTON”.

But if Barton’s apology is a great victory for the Democrats, it spells a terrible tragedy for the state of Washington politics.

In the run up to the midterms most expected the two parties to be rivaling for first prize in the ‘who can be hasher on BP’ competition. But this competition appears to have fallen by the wayside to be replaced by the battle between the parties. And the fact that oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico appears to have become an incidental sub narrative to the entire affair.

On Tuesday, Republican Representative for Louisiana Anh “Joseph” Cao called on Tony Hayward to fall on his own sword. “Mr. Stearns asked you to resign. In the Asian culture we do things differently. During the Samurai days we just give you a knife and ask you to commit hara-kiri,” said Cao, who is of Vietnamese descent. Hara-kiri is considered a noble death. The only way for a warrior to regain respect and pride when he has committed a serious wrong.

Hayward is not the only figure in this performance who should take heed of Cao’s words. A Greek tragedy ends with the protagonist’s final undoing as he realizes too late the frailties of his own character. That kind of self-awareness is still a long way from the stage in this performance, but every character, the Democrats and Republicans, the Obama administration and BP, could do with a little self-analysis.