Hmm. When I saw Goblin: Macbeth at Bard on the Beach in 2023, I pretty much hated it: “The goblin element is never outrageous, it’s rarely funny, and Shakespeare’s text is wasted.” I was not a fan of the rigid latex masks the actors wore. But I saw Goblin: Oedipus last night — same bunch of goblins (I think), pretty much the same masks — and I had a very good time. What the heck? Without time traveling and seeing Goblin: Macbeth again, I’m at a loss to account for the differences in my experience. But, when I reread my Goblin: Macbeth review, I recognize it as true to my response in 2023. So all I can do right now is stay faithful to my response to Goblin: Oedipus in 2026.
I’m mentioning all this because I think it’s good idea to acknowledge — it’s certainly good for me to remember — the subjectivity of criticism.
Okay. Here we go. Good times with incest.
Going into this show, I was afraid that it would be vulgar, that it wouldn’t take Sophocles’s subject matter seriously, but that’s not the case. Goblin: Oedipus is a comedy that respects its baseline of tragedy. When Oedipus realizes that he has fallen victim to his fate, murdered his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta, he still gouges out his eyes, and the result is still bloody. Horrified, Jocasta has already hanged herself. Don’t get me wrong. Goblin: Oedipus is not heavy. It’s very clearly light entertainment. But it’s smart enough to honour its serious underpinnings so that it can exploit the comic richness of irreverence and juxtaposition.
When Oedipus is resisting revelations from the Delphic oracle, for instance — maybe in a scene with his uncle, Creon?— their dialogue descends to the schoolyard: “I know you are but what am I?”, “Rubber! Glue!”, “Motherfucker, say ‘What?’”
In a significant tell about the true nature of their relationship, Jocasta and Oedipus slip into classic mother/child scenes — when she puts his head in her lap for a disastrous story time, for instance.
And Moog, the goblin who plays live music for this production, keeps trying to steer it towards A Christmas Carol, which he really, really wants to perform, launching into “Away in a Manger”, for example, because “It’s a story about a prophecy and a baby.”
The creators of this piece want to keep secret the identities of the actors under the masks and I’ll honour that desire, but I will say that one goblin, Wug, plays Oedipus and another, Kragva, plays everybody else. Both are skilled, both have great timing, and it’s particularly satisfying to watch Kragva transform: a blue light appears, Kragva spins into it and becomes Jocasta.
I can’t forget the other players. The script carves out space for a Chorus of twelve “men and boys”. Masked and robed for the occasion, a dozen audience volunteers learn how to respond to a series of cues. Every time they hear the word light, for instance, they shake their hands in the air and warble like a hallelujah chorus. This convention builds until it borders on the virtuosic.
This might seem an odd thing to mention, but Spontaneous Theatre has based Goblin: Oedipus on playwright John Murell’s translation of Sophocles’s text and the beauty of that translation also becomes part of this experience. There are rhyming couplets, but what really grabbed me were the echoes within phrases, including “assassin’s assistant” and “as a lawyer, as a liar.”
Goblin: Oedipus even has playful — and insightful — thematic resonance. Addressing the issue of incest, Jocasta says, “You can have the thought. You just don’t actually do it.” Yeah. There’s that.
Wug, Kragva, and Moog are fascinated by human theatre’s ability to synchronize audience members’ heartbeats and breathing. Goblin: Oedipus does a particularly good job of that: its improvisational and interactive elements make it obvious that those of us in the audience aren’t just watching the show, we’re also making it — and that is always true.
GOBLIN: OEDIPUS Created by Spontaneous Theatre based on John Murell’s translation of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King. Running in rep in the Douglas Campbell Tent at Bard on the Beach until September 19. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: Kragva and the Chorus. (Photo by Emily Cooper. Costumes by Ralamy Kneeshaw. Associate lighting designer, John Webber)
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