Over the course of a single hour, “Oedipus in Seattle” turns a performance bursting with playful confusion into a moving philosophical experience about fate and control. It takes real courage to mash up Greek tragedy and rom-com — and the team behind “Oedipus in Seattle” has it.
“Oedipus in Seattle,” written by Savannah Reich, a former Swarthmore faculty member, and presented by Theatre Horizon in Norristown, is a mash-up of the classic Greek tragedy “Oedipus Rex” and the ’90s rom-com “Sleepless in Seattle.” To add to the experimental nature of this mash-up, the actors have never rehearsed and are unfamiliar with how the story unfolds. Instead, an ominous robotic voice echoes in the theater, or in their headsets. Further, what separates this play from the average performance is the fact that the actors change every night. With that, the design choices are unique each night, dependent on the chemistry of the performers and the audience’s participation in certain segments of the night.
The night I attended, Oct. 3, the two performers were Justin Jain and Jacinta Yelland. They were absolutely captivating to watch with a phenomenal ability to genre swap from Greek tragedy to rom-com. Despite having a limited understanding of the source material, their performance required remixing, spontaneity, and playfulness. Jain and Yelland perfected their roles from the moment they stepped onto the stage. As someone who has gone to live performances from small plays in hidden-away theatres to Broadway shows, the synergy they managed to create between the audience and themselves was unlike anything I’d seen in a play. Just as they didn’t know where the performance would go, we, the audience, didn’t either. In the black box, their confusion became ours — and the energy they created was electric.
Live theatre thrives on the spirit that moves from audience to stage and back. “Oedipus in Seattle” and Reich lean into that advantage and make the most of it.
Although the show’s short run will have ended by the time this article is published, if given the chance, I encourage anyone to see a play written by Reich.
