Ellen Bailey and Emily Burton in Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore; Photo Stephen Henry
Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award winning play from Daniel Evans, now playing at Queensland Theatre Company’s Billy Brown Studio. Directed by Jason Klarwien and performed by an ensemble of four actors it re-imagines the classic tale of Oedipus as an outer suburban tragedy seen through the eyes of the young people left behind after the chain of incest, murder and suicide has run it’s course, the news vans have moved on, and the adults have decided to never mention Oedipus and his family again.
Evans has managed to balance an awful lot of elements in the complex, many layered script. The story is obviously horrific but the familiar setting simultaneously highlights the absurdity of the ancient tale while making terrifyingly real the grizzly detail of those mythic events and drawing powerful links to contemporary stories of incest and murder ever present in a news cycle hungry for gruesome spectacle.
But surprisingly the overwhelming experience for the audience is… I hesitate to say it … joyful, as Evans milks pitch black humour from the most unlikely of moments. Klarwien’s direction keeps the focus on the lightning fast language, finding laughs not only in the one liners (of which there are many) but also in the awkward silences and, most enjoyably, in the characterisations which capture, in both language and action, a sense of the familiar. The grand narrative is always brought down to earth through Evans’ ear for the suburban dialects, as though you saw that girl on the train, or went to school with that guy, or had that conversation at your last awkward family reunion.
It’s a credit to the performers that they make those characters live and breathe even through a single line. Throughout they draw us in with a disarming openness and lightness and their unshakeable connection with the audience is a big part of what makes this wild ride work. It’s a real performers’ workout, with the lines coming at a blistering pace, the tone changing from hilarious to horrific in an instant and choral text, storytelling and dialogue all tightly interwoven. Each performer has moments of brilliance and no doubt over the next few nights the ensemble will be able to pull this weave even tighter.
The space is spare and functional (excluding the epic graffiti backdrop) and the lights starkly mark the scene changes, which again pushes focus to the script and the performers. The sound seems the most complex design element and it gets a few laughs of its own but similarly gives focus to the text. This all serves the play well but I would have loved to see a couple of really beautiful images in design and staging to further enliven the experience. Even in the outer suburbs we can be struck by sudden moments of the sublime. There were also a couple of interesting elements that seemed to quietly slip away, most noticeably the relationships between the four storytellers. Some interesting tensions seemed to be developing there before the force of the story they were telling took over.
It’s a stunning play, immensely enjoyable for all its gruesomeness. I could not help but feel my complicity in these kinds of events and the way we consume them for our own titillation. The delicate balance of graphic horror and broad comedy allows us to safely engage one of the enduring problems of human existence, how do we respond in the face of something, so many things, that are truly dreadful. It is that rare work of art that can at once entertain and horrify.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Written by Daniel Evans
Director: Jason Klarwien
Queensland Theatre Company
Bille Brown Studio
23 May- 13 June
Warning: Very high course language, adult themes, simulated drug use, high violence, strobe lighting, smoke and haze.
