Play Review: The Oedipal Duplex

Friday night, I found myself fourth floor at the Seattle Center's Center House. In a tiny room with chairs set for no more than twenty people, I was watching two plays put on by the theater group Ghost Light Theatricals. Both plays were focused on the mythical Greek king, Oedipus, whose story is one of where he killed his father and married his mother. Obviously such actions do not come without consequence as it brings plague on the city he is king of and as you can guess, his family.

The plays however put a comedic twist on a tragic figure and both plays had me in great laughter. Read about each play behind the jump.


It should be noted that the first play titled "Mother Phoecker," was written by Matt Lyman, who is the editor of the sports blog, Afraid Of Ed Hochuli. Believe it or not, most bloggers do things outside of the computer screen. Back to the play. Right from the start, I saw the admiration Matt has for the TV show, "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia," as the introduction of King Oedipus' right hand man, Creon (played by Matthew Gilbert) comes in storming with the line, "Hello, bitches!" and is foul-mouthed and drinks beer. Oedipus played by Jalyn Green, learns of the fate that is to come to him through a blind oracle, Tieresius, played by Jennifer Ross. Insulted by what fate he has, Oedipus goes at great lengths to clear his name of being a murderer and even accuses his right hand man Creon of plotting against him. Oedipus seeks the counsel of his wife, Jocasta played by Erin Sheehy, though as the story unfolds, there is more to Jocasta and just being the wife of Oedipus.

Serving as transition to scenes, a chorus that serves to Oedipus talks to their God, Apollo about the dire situation of their city and it's people and the news that rocks the king which grows into the people's distrust of the king. The revelation of the origin of Oedipus results in the king being removed from the throne and sure enough, as Oedipus in his paranoia predicted, Creon becomes the king. Though he is the new king, Creon is still foul-mouthed and doesn't care much for Oedipus who has fallen from grace and banishes him away from the kingdom.

Two things stuck out to me in "Mother Phoecker" the first being the colorful  dialogue of Creon in comparison to Oedipus and everyone else from the chorus to two shepherds who shared an amusingly tender friendship, if not more than a friendship. Where everyone spoke with proper dignity like you would in ancient Greece and especially around people of important title and position, Creon told it like it is and that is an extension of the sense of humor that the writer, Matt Lyman has. The other thing that stuck out was whenever someone had an revelation, they spoke in rhymes. While it was mostly Tieresius that had the revelations, being that she was an oracle, Oedipus had his moment as well and the rhymes were well crafted.

So back to the story of Oedipus, with him removed from the throne, his family fallen to shreds and as self-punishment, he stabbeds his own eyes out, Oedipus was banished. Banished to where exactly, well this is where the second play comes in.

The second play about King Oedipus was called "Blinding Pains" and was done in the manner of a sitcom. Written by Ben Newton & David van Wert, this one had the crowd roaring. The premise was that Oedipus was exiled to the land called Phoenix and running a Mexican restaurant called Oedipus Mex. Soon enough you were able to make a connection that Oedipus could really be viewed as just any average bumbling character you'd find in a sitcom, but at the same time, he is pretty loveable.

In this play, Oedipus was played by Will Hardyman and throughout the entire play, he had a bandage wrapped around his eyes and I have to give him credit for that. Yes I know these are all professional actors and have practiced this before, but factor in that more than once he had to stumble over furniture ala Dick Van Dyke, the effort has to be applauded. While "Mother Phoecker" had the colorful Creon, "Blinding Pains" had two memorable characters for me. Luis, played by Brenan Grant was the chef at Oedipus Mex and was often at odds and threatened to stab with the waiter Nigel (played by Nick Mathews) in the fashion of Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison from "The Odd Couple." The other character was the brilliantly named Tyler Perry's Othelllo played by Marlon Taylor. When he was first introduced, for a second I was thinking that the actual Tyler Perry was going to show up. Hey, considering that it's pretty much every month there's a Tyler Perry movie in the theaters, it's not far fetched to think he'd just pop up randomly in Seattle to take part in a play. Tyler Perry's Othello was Oedipus' next door neighbor/good buddy much like how Cosmo Kramer was to Jerry Seinfeld. He was cool, sly and at the end wore roller skates and serenaded himself in a corner. And he was a snappy dresser.

Sticking to the sitcom theme, the transitions to scenes was handled by commercial breaks, though it was just audio jingles. I was told that the original plan was to have actually produced commercials played on a video screen. However due to the space limitations of the room, unfortunately that wasn't the case. I tell you this though, if ever they produce the commercials into full fledged TV spots, I will definitely watch them. When the commercials ended and we returned to the play, there was a voiceover that said, "Blinding Pains was recorded in front of a live studio audience." I found that to be a nice touch.

In "Blinding Pains," Oedipus falls for a woman named Jane (played by Sarah Simmons) and in typical sitcom fashion, any and all efforts she makes to win over Oedipus through love ends up with hilariously disastrous results. Like true sitcom fashion, Jane has a catch phrase, which in this case is, "Gee Jane, you really screwed this one up." During his courtship of Jane, Oedipus Mex takes on an interesting client as they serve a party to the royal family of Denmark. Before you know it, the play brings in the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet into the fold and given the how funny the tale of Oedipus can be viewed despite the aspects of murder and incest, it only felt natural to incorporate Hamlet. This results in a climax where Oedipus is left all alone and feeling unimaginable guilt as if he was responsible for all of the mayhem that he blindly just walked into. In a funny last act, Oedipus takes two butter knives and tries to stab out his eyes, again.

For no reason other than I found it amusing was that in a random guest spot, Matthew Gilbert who played Creon in  "Mother Phoecker," appears as an ode to Marlon Brando's character from "A Streetcar Named Desire," and by that he yells with great emphasis for his wife Stella and takes it further to calling for the waiter Nigel, "HEY WAITER!" In a play full of one-liners that come at you back and forth, just having that random element was funny.

What I saw on Friday was very entertaining. Ghost Light Theatricals put on two vey good plays about a figure in Greek mythology that for all intents and purposes is a tragic figure, but so easy to make light of and laugh at. One has to appreciate all of the hard work everyone put into both productions. Congratulations and thank you to the folks at Ghost Light Theatricals for putting on two amusing and entertaining shows.

Ghost Light Theatricals (official website)