More than thirty years apart, two major figures of the Quebec theater scene – Marcel Dubé and Wajdi Mouawad – take up the mythical story of The King of Thebes, who killed his father and slept with his mother,  and propose its "Quebec versions". The two plays, Au retour des oies blanches (1969) and Incendies (2003), are well anchored in the contemporary reality of their respective authors: the Quiet Revolution for Dubé and the civil war in Lebanon for Mouawad. Both returns to the myth of Oedipus depict young people who, like the mythical character, pursue a quest for their roots and reach the end of their respective investigations. This article aims to take up the key elements of the myth and to study their dramaturgical functioning in modern texts.

More than thirty years apart, two major figures of the Quebec theater scene – Marcel Dubé and Wajdi Mouawad – take up the mythical story of The King of Thebes, who killed his father and slept with his mother,  and propose its "Quebec versions". The two plays, Au retour des oies blanches (1969) and Incendies (2003), are well anchored in the contemporary reality of their respective authors: the Quiet Revolution for Dubé and the civil war in Lebanon for Mouawad. Both returns to the myth of Oedipus depict young people who, like the mythical character, pursue a quest for their roots and reach the end of their respective investigations. This article aims to take up the key elements of the myth and to study their dramaturgical functioning in modern texts.