Review: The Troubadours’ ‘Oedipus the King, Mama!’ at Getty Villa

From left: Matt Walker (Oedipus) and Beth Kennedy (Jocasta) in "Oedipus the King, Mama!" at Getty Villa (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography)

It’s always sublime to experience the Troubadour Theater Company’s mirthful take on classics, from a Shakespeare play told with ‘80s music in “Duran DurAntony & Cleopatra” at the Colony Theatre last year to its 2021 post-pandemic Aristophanes/Liza Minelli mashup “Lizastrata” at the Getty Villa, which invited the troupe back after their 2016 transformation of Plautus’s ghostly Roman comedy “Mostellaria” into an even funnier “Haunted House Party.”  

Unsurprisingly, almost as a celebration of the museum surviving the recent Palisades Fire, the Troubies (as they’re affectionally known by fans) have returned yet again for the Villa’s annual outdoor theater production, this time staging a well-known Greek tragedy of a king who inadvertently killed his father and married his mother — but inflected through the music of Elvis Presley — in “Oedipus the King, Mama!” (originally commissioned for the Villa’s Theater Lab Workshop in 2009).

From left: Steven Booth (Young Oedipus) and Matt Walker (Oedipus) in "Oedipus the King, Mama!" at Getty Villa (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography)

And yes, as with other classical productions, they do tell the whole tale (mostly). After an intro that perhaps goes a beat too long in which Troubies director and play adaptor Matt Walker threatens to simply read Sophocles’ story while Rick Batalla plays accordion (badly), the troupe bursts out in one Elvis hit after another — including versions of “Hound Dog,” “All Shook Up,” “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" and "Suspicious Minds" — with Walker playing King Oedipus in a white jumpsuit/toga hybrid (costumes by Sharon McGunigle).

Oedipus’s subjects are suffering from a plague perhaps only slightly worse than Covid when a chorus of Troubie citizens beg the king for help. A flashback to Oedipus answering the riddle of the Sphinx — fabulously portrayed as a giant puppet, designed by Matt Scott and soulfully sung by Cloie Wyatt Taylor — proves Oedipus’s quick thinking in sending his brother Creon (Batalla, dressed like a green crayon and delivering one schticky joke after another) to seek help from an oracle.

Center: Cloie Wyatt Taylor with ensemble in "Oedipus the King, Mama!" at Getty Villa (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography)

But Creon returns with the message that the killer of previous king Laius (Philip McNiven, who also delights later as an oracular Magic 8 Ball), must be found for the plague to be lifted. Oedipus then summons blind seer Tiresias (Mike Sulprizio), carrying a staff with a glowing eye, to give him the murderer’s name, only to be told it was none other than Oedipus himself.

From left: Matt Walker (Oedipus) and Rick Batalla (Creon) in "Oedipus the King, Mama!" at Getty Villa (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography)

So begins a mystery couched in prophecies past and present to reveal how that could be, and what has happened since. Clue: Oedipus’s wife Jocasta (the incomparable Beth Kennedy in big hair, red dress and cheap shoes) is Laius’s widow, and Laius had been given a prophecy that he would be killed by his son, and Jocasta seems awfully (and raunchily) maternal toward Oedipus.

This is not a performance for kids. Not only does Jocasta offer Oedipus her prosthetic breast to suckle (and a slinky?) and straddle stair railings, but we eventually meet Oedipus’s daughters Antigone (Lara Lafferty) and Ismene (Suzanne Jolie), one of whom is double-headed due to inbreeding, and whom he can’t help but squirt with bloody tears because he’s just stabbed out his eyes in horror at the truth (his resulting blindness hilariously tested by Creon).

Beth Kennedy (Jocasta) in foreground with Katie Maila (Young Jocasta) and Philip McNiven (Laius) in background (Photo © 2025 J. Paul Getty Trust)

Throughout, the Troubies give it their all through physical comedy, songs — featuring live music and Broadway musical performer Steven Booth lifting up his toga a lot — and zingy one-liners taken from today’s headlines and local SoCal references.

The only challenge is the enforced low sound in the ample space of the Villa amphitheater. Though there are mics (and dynamic lighting by Bo Tindell), volume is kept low so as not to disturb the neighbors, which reduces the pleasure in some of the bigger dance numbers, especially a rollicking one where everyone is dressed as Elvis.

Cast of "Oedipus the King, Mama!" at Getty Villa (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography)

Nevertheless, more fun could not be had in a museum of antiquities, or really anywhere. Just sit up close so you can relish the brilliance of the Troubies’ zany, smart talent telling this tragedy of epic proportions through snarly lips, thrusty hips and nonstop laughs.

“Oedipus the King, Mama!” continues at the Getty Villa Museum, 17985 Pacific Coast Hwy., Pacific Palisades, through Sept. 27, with shows Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $30 to $45. For tickets and information, visit Getty.edu. Run time is 90 minutes with no intermission.