As the audience herds into the theatre they are observed from the side of the stage by the director of Oedipus Loves You, Gavin Quinn, peering at them through a pane of Perspex. He watches on, knowingly, as we take our places. Mostly unaware of the voyeur on the stage, the audience continues to settle in, chattering in anticipation and skimming over the programme. The hubbub halts as the curtain rises revealing the Sphinx (Andrew Bennett) standing naked, penis and scrotum tucked between his legs, singing in a distorted voice of love and lust.Heavily informed by Brecht’s Epic Theatre and reeking of Post Modernism, Oedipus Loves You is a contemporary revisitation of the Oedipus myth. The players are the same, but the setting has changed and there are some cleverly written and technical plays that make the production all the more interesting.
There are two screens hovering above the stage: one that focuses on the red satin sheeted bed of Oedipus (Bush Moukarzel) and his mother/wife Jocasta (Gina Moxley), the other a second stage manipulated by Quinn on the side of the ‘real’ stage that informs/mimics the ‘real’ performance. The first screen did little for me other than to establish the intimacy of Oedipus’ relationship with Jocasta which was already implicit in the script, but the second screen provided an additional layer of meaning to the production.
The core moral to the myth of Oedipus Rex is that one cannot escape one’s fate. The second screen plays with this notion in that Quinn, the co-writer/director of the piece, throughout the production performs a puppeted copy of what his players are performing on stage that is captured through live feed and displayed to the audience. It was a delightful play: director as god that complemented the production’s exploration of fate and the roll of free will within it.
Re-writing Tiresias (Andrew Bennet), the blind prophet of the Oedipus myth, as the family psychologist cleverly adds another layer to the production by introducing Freud’s Oedipus Complex and the practise of psychoanalysis into the plays discourse. Suddenly the characters of the myth are subjected to the psychological practices that they themselves informed in an attempt to further understand their own dilemma.
While the performances of the actors and the use of live music throughout the production are strong I felt that Oedipus Loves You was trying to be too much. This in itself, I believe, is intentional and forces the audience into a state of picnolepsy where they’re taking in so much at once that it is impossible to focus. As a commentary on the direction that our everyday lives are heading this is quite astute, but coupled with the many other alienating techniques the production employs I found the overall effect disengaging.
On reflection Oedipus Loves You is conceptually strong and solidly produced. But if you asked me whether it moved me, I would answer, no.
Pan Pan Theatre
Oedipus Loves You
by Simon Doyle and Gavin Quinn
Directed by Gavin Quinn
Venue: Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre | The University of Sydney, Cnr City Rd and Cleveland St, Chippendale
Dates: January 21–23, 25 at 8.30pm; January 23, 24 at 5pm
Duration: 1hr 15mins, no interval
Tickets: $30
Bookings: Seymour Theatre Centre 02 9351 7940 | Sydney Festival 1300 668 812 | Ticketmaster 1300 723 038
Web: www.sydneyfestival.org.au/panpan