Begin with the myth of Oedipus. Combine it with "The Holy Sinner," a tale by Thomas Mann, in which a pope marries his mother (who is also his father's sister). But where the story of Oedipus ends in tragedy, Mann's pair end up admitting that they suspected their blood ties all along, and just wanted to amuse the gods.

Now add sonorous passages from the Old Testament and bawdy ones from "Gesta Romanorum," a collection of medieval tales. The result is "Saint Oedipus," a short, driven work from Theater Wierszalin of Poland, which opened last night at La MaMa E.T.C. The director and playwright Piotr Tomaszuk has joined texts and ideas with a postmodern vengeance. He gives us pagans and Christians, tragedy and parody, fate and redemption, the struggles of the flesh and of the spirit. And he adds two crucial elements. He explores the complex dynamics between actors and puppets, while his two amazing performers, Rafal Gasowski and Edyta Lukaszewicz-Lisowska, cross all boundaries of age and gender. When the play begins, they evoke a world of 18th-century formalities: frock coats, white cuffs that flutter below their wrists, riding boots. They speak Polish. We hear the majestic, fearsome strains of Mozart's "Requiem." Then, a curtain of straw and wood parts and we are in a world of violent forbidden sex.