Antigone by Sophocles is a classic Greek Tragedy about a woman defying the state of Thebes, including all the notorious, familiar Gods such as Oedipus, Polygonises and Eteocles. This third in the chronicle series of Theban Plays, following “Oedipus the King” and “Oedipus at Colonus” and initially performed in 497 BC. Greek tragedies were said to have been traditionally played in the open air, almost arena semi-circle spaces which is the same concept at our adaptation, being thrust and having audiences circling you. Erica Gould, the director, mentioned to me that ‘Greek tragedies are very two dimensional and black and white.’ What she means by this is that the representation of life is simple, life or death, but also the actors dramatically reciting the melodramatic monologues directly to the audience in toga garments. Erica wanted to retain this tradition of actors connecting with the audience and yearning for them to synopsise. Another characteristic of Greek tragedies is that death is enviable, spectators are not there for the plot but the storytelling.
The production of Antigone at GSA had used was a new piece reworked written by Neil LaBute, An American Film Writer, from Jean Anouilh adaptation and translation 1944. This text was based primarily on the anti-fascist French resistance as the Nazis occupied Paris in World War two, already very different from the ancient Greek style. LaBute's and Anouilh's offers an almost three-dimensional representation of life and how it is not merely or black and white and highlighting the complexity of moralism. LaBute and Erica interesting brought the play forward to present or even the future day. Erica anticipated the context of this version to be circling past dictatorships as well as modern-day dictatorships. Nazism and Middle Easter war crime were her inspiration. Erica said ‘the themes of this story are so rare and relevant that they could happen anywhere’. So, she decided that it would be anywhere and with the cast invented this fiction town Thebes. Along with this idea came the invention of an ancient and designs of flags and their own Sigma which is present on most of my props. Her concept was the central space to be empty with a large slab rock that was to represent the clean palace of Thebes; surrounded by chaos beyond the walls, an extremely war-torn country. War was a significant part of Antigone’s life and how lone rebellion against the state was her fate. This theme caused a lot of the props to be based on militaries. For instance, all state members, Creon [King] and his guards shown in arm wear, with Rifles, Automatic hand pistols, Walkie-talkies. The mise en scene, costume and props are entirely different from how this play would have been first performed and how it had been previously. However, the themes are still relevant in some countries today.
Erica played on this idea and placed the play in the time of 2019 to enhance this concept. During the research period when DSM[Jon] the cast and I didn’t know the full cast list Erica made some changed to genders of the main character Creon. This character is the king of Thebes and most certainly played by a man in 400 BC, however, role gender-reversed and had a female play this part. Her reasons behind this was that audience simply wouldn’t sympathise with the audience as much with Antigone if she was up against a dominating male figure.