OEDIPUS LOVES YOU. To 23 February.
London.
OEDIPUS LOVES YOU
by Simon Soyle and Gavin Quinn.
Riverside Studios (Studio 2) To 24 February 2008.
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 1hr 10min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 8237 1111.
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 February.
Sex, death and rock ‘n’ roll in a heady mess.
When a new play arrives we don’t automatically say “Two acts. Four characters. Relationships. Too familiar”. So, it’s doubtless unfair to meet Pan Pan’s Oedipus Loves You, from Ireland, with a “Been there. Seen that. Wooster Group”.
Yet upfront ‘experimental’ styles invite such responses. Here are familiar elements; a patio acting area backed by a skeletal bungalow, large windows allowing action within to be seen. Most ‘inner’ action happens on a scarlet-covered double-bed, replicated overhead on a screen. There’s the obligatory onstage technicians, visibly creating model images referring to events, with 2D character cut-outs, and, at times, a swaying copy of song-lyrics or script.
Rock music of course, Gordon Is A Mime being the name of the family band. And an inflatable paddling-pool, replicating in miniature the swimming-pools so vital to give performers a dunking in many new, and now classical, pieces. Plus (so usual I also forgot about it) the nudity, with a sex-concealed Sphinx singing into a microphone as events begin.
Yet, despite moments that seem indulgent or intellectualised, there are keen dramatic perceptions here – the piece is upfront in confronting Freud’s (and others’) Oedipus involvement too. The skeletal home, the mix of Oedipus, his mother/wife Jocasta, brother Creon and daughter Antigone brings the family, rather than any individual into focus. And the skeletal house, with the technology exposing and repeating events within it, comments pungently on the secrecy and fear of publicity among people whose behaviour is at once deeply personal and widely typical.
Individual characters are defined by performance style. Bush Moukarzel’s young, bearded Oedipus has a flat normality of speech reflecting family normality, as does his neutral, innocent-white wear, till his predicament emerges; then he re-emerges self-blinded and blood-drenched.
Ruth Negga's Antigone has the tough directness of youth, preparing her for her own choices which still lie ahead (you don’t enter this territory without assuming prior awareness of Sophocles’ tragedies being out there). Her turbulence finds expression in some of the rock numbers.
Messy, simplistic, imaginative and energetic, Pan Pan’s production vividly puts Oedipus in the family setting where, away from Greek Tragedy, it belongs.
Oedipus: Bush Moukarzel.
Jocasta: Gina Moxley.
Sphinx/Tiresias: Ned Dennehy.
Antigone: Ruth Negga.
Creon: Dylan Tighe.
Director: Gavin Quinn.
Designer: Andrew Clancy.
Lighting: Aedin Cosgrove.
Music: Gordon Is A Mime.
Costume: Helen McKusker.
2008-02-17 12:34:39