You can call her stubborn. You can call her proud. But you also can call her pure. Antigone knew what she wanted and she wasn’t willing to compromise. Even if that meant death.
Sound a little extreme? It is. She is. But the same story that Sophocles popularized some 2,500 years ago is still relevant today, and this weekend the Theatre and Interpretation Center brings French playwright Jean Anouilh’s version of “Antigone” to life.
Though Anouilh has a different take on this tragic tale, the basic story stays the same. Audience members are introduced to Antigone, a young, ambitious girl who is appalled to learn that one of her brothers did not receive a proper burial because he was considered a traitor at his death. Antigone takes it upon herself to bury her brother even though this action is punishable by death. When she is caught, she admits her crime, and despite her uncle King Creon’s urging to compromise, she remains adamant in her beliefs and chooses to face the consequences.
Anouilh added a modern touch to the famous tragedy when he wrote his “Antigone” in the 1940s while France was under German occupation, director Les Hinderyckx said. It was considered an allegory of France under the Vichy government and it oddly appealed to the French and the Nazis, who allowed it to pass the censors. The French thought it clearly showed the evil of dictatorships, while the Nazis saw Creon as a compassionate, understanding ruler who upheld the laws set by the government.
But TI’s production is not focusing on the fact that this story fits well in 1940s France, but rather on its timelessness.
Speech junior Blake Longacre, who plays Creon, said “Antigone” raises many questions that “have a lot to do with the way we live our lives.”
“Do you do the right thing even though you know that there will be consequences because of it?” Longacre asks. “What does it mean to live in a world where we sometimes have to compromise our strongest held principles?”
But Antigone can’t live in a world that requires her to compromise, Hinderyckx said. And in the end, Creon cannot relinquish his beliefs either.
“It’s a very human story about two people who are emblems – an exact image of two extreme forms of motivation,” he said. “They come in conflict with each other because they believe in different values.”
“Antigone” gives audiences a chance to see what happens when principles are supplied and driven to the extreme, Hinderyckx said. There are still people in today’s society who go to the extremes – that’s why people bomb abortion clinics, that’s why there are murders, that’s why there was the Oklahoma City bombing, he said. “As long as these people are with us, these circumstances of life are going to drive them to the extreme.”
But who says going to the extreme is always bad? Speech junior Mattie Hawkinson, who plays Antigone, said it’s because Antigone sticks to her guns that she manages to remain pure.
“I want the audience to leave questioning whether they’ve felt as strongly about something as Antigone,” Hawkinson said.
Hinderyckx said he wants the audience to gain “inward awareness of life and human motivation”; he wants this to be a “profound experience.”
“It’s one of the facts of live theater – that you’re there and you’re going to participate vicariously,” he said. “There are extreme situations and driving emotions onstage. No one in the audience wants to live through what the characters are experiencing, but by seeing the play, they can understand that sense of extremity.” nyou
