Antigone - Feburary 2019

Thoughts on the play…

How does it all begin?

It begins with a girl, it begins with a king, it begins with a god…

It begins with a daughter, it begins with a father…

It begins with a war, it begins with loss, it begins with death.

So now that we’ve got you – why would you want to stay and see this story out? People have been attracted to this play for over two thousand years. Sophocles’ play was first presented in Athens in 438 B.C. and beat out the reigning champion Aeschylus for best play in the theatre festival that year. Theatre for the Greeks was a major political event – not the elitist leisure time activity it often becomes today. Playwrights explored moral leadership and the expectations of responsible citizenship.

In this recent translation of the original story, we find Antigone speaking her truth to the power of the state – the incarnations of an irresistible force confronting an immovable object. Following the Theban war, the new king Creon must enforce the law of the state in order to prevent wider anarchy as he strives to make his state great again.

Antigone believes it is her moral duty to bury her brother who was killed in the war. Creon has decreed that he should be left to rot as an example of what will happen to any enemy of the state. Neither Antigone nor Creon will be dissuaded – they cannot be. Compromise is not an option when moral law is at stake. Negotiation is impossible when the greater good of the state is in jeopardy.

Socrates addresses issues that are still being played out on the world stage today. It is not a stretch to seemingly find quotes from the play in the morning paper. Questioning the qualities of moral leadership is as essential today as it was in the time of the Greeks. Theatre has always held up a mirror to the community and asked its’ citizens to look at themselves as they are – not as they might wish them to be. Finding your voice and speaking up for what you know is right is as difficult now as it was then. Some things are never said for fear of consequences. The price of remaining silent in the face of injustice is to be complicit. Antigone believes that moral law is superior to the law of man. Creon knows that he cannot falter or the spine of the state will be broken. Can they both be right?

How does it end?