Writer and Director: Mella Faye
Mother, father son: it’s Oedipus Rex but in a rugged modern setting. Theatre Company Pecho Mama brings to Brixton a Greek tragedy transposed into a modern meta-dramatic matrix of sound and light, reminding London audiences why this remix of a classical text comes in the shadow of rave reviews.
Jocasta is on a deadline; as she feverishly writes, she does a pregnancy test. Joy quickly turns to devastation under the threat of a hysterectomy, and thus we enter a heady land of fiction and fact, a search for her long-lost son, and the catastrophic consequences. As Jocasta’s startling fantasy grips her consciousness, her world is animated by complex and intense drum patterns, ethereal singing and live mixing to bring forth a chaotic pastiche of reality, plot, character and questions on the prevalence of fate.
At the forefront of the production is Pecho Mama’s own Don Bird as one of the onstage drum mixers who, along with Tom Penn on the double bass and keys, creates an overwhelming, heady and effective soundscape to Jocasta’s mind. Tanya Stephenson and Clare O’Donoghue’s lighting design works in complete harmony with the music and feverish plot. It’s a captivating sensory overload, that does well to translate what is often just an off-putting Greek tragedy into something very watchable and often shocking.
Mella Faye’s Jocasta is full of frenetic energy, but just as quickly she turns to the lucid calm of a writer testing out material. In this way Faye’s double presence on stage and as writer/director seems to shape the ebb and flow of the production between emotion and energy, with excellent results.
Ryan David Harston fully embodies Oedipus; jerky anxiety turns into smooth dance moves, and vicious violence equally turns into gentle care seamlessly. The intensity of such physicality even tests the limits of the precious scaffolding stage, the wobbling a testament to the fact Harston does not hold back. He’s a long-lost son in the writer’s eyes and, at the same time, a character attempting to fight for agency after centuries of a torturous and devastating fate stuck in a tragic story for eternity. It’s an impressive performance and an interesting re-casting of a timeless story from Pecho Mama.
It’s an enthralling production. But when the loud noises and intensity slips away, it’s interesting to ask what is left. Some meaningful moments between husband and wife over child loss, certainly. But some moments leave the audience empty who wait for the next big crash. Not enough to break the spell completely, however.
Complex, intense, and emotional, Oedipus Electronica twists a Greek classic into a feverish study of fate, reality, and at its core, love. A fascinating watch.
Runs until 9 March 2024
