Pan Pan's version of Oedipus myth breaks new boundaries

The story of Oedipus, the King of Thebes who marries his mother after unknowingly killing his father, is one of the classical tales from Greek tragedy and it has fascinated people for thousands of years.  

One of those who fell completely under the Oedipus spell is Gavin Quinn of groundbreaking Pan Pan Theatre Company, who co-created a highly successful show based on the story. Oedipus Loves You toured all over the world following its premiere in Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre in 2006 and now it’s finally coming home to Ireland, playing the Town Hall Theatre on November 15 and 16 as part of a national tour.

Co-written by Simon Doyle and Gavin, and directed by Gavin, Oedipus Loves You has been been staged in cities including Quebec, Berlin, Beijing, Hamburg, Helsinki and Shanghai.

Reviewing it at this year’s Sydney Festival, the critic of The Sydney Morning Herald described it as “the most fun I've had in a theatre all festival”. Meanwhile, when it played New York, the critic of The New York Times, Ben Brantley praised Pan Pan’s “rough and sneakingly smart gloss on mythology’s favorite mama’s boy”.

Gavin and Simon spent about a year researching the story, drawing on classical writers from Sophocles to Seneca, explains Gavin, who says he is “interested in the idea that we understand each other better through myths and stories than through hard facts. Oedipus is a warning – a strange story with a dark outcome”.

The original myth of Oedipus epitomises Greek tragedy, explains Gavin. Oedipus, who is abandoned by his parents as a child unknowingly kills his father Laius as an adult, and then marries his mother Jocasta, with whom he has four children. When Oedipus discovers the truth he blinds himself and Jocasta hangs herself.

When it came to writing the play, the Gavin and Simon also included Sigmund Freud in the mix. The psychologist and father of psychoanalysis became famous for his Oedipus Complex theory, called after the Greek myth, in which he claimed that young boys have an unconscious desire for the exclusive love of their mothers.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.