I’m going to do what Jean Anouillh’s Antigone should have done and get right to the point. This is a bad play, mediocrely acted. The set and costumes are pretty.
Antigone (that’s Anti-gone, or Onti-gon, or Auntie-gun – the actors pronounce it differently every time) is a “reinterpretation” of the classic Sophocles tragedy Antigone (consistently pronounced An-ti-go-nee) set in…1940s France? It is unclear where, when, or, for that matter, why the action is taking place.This reworking, first staged in Nazi-occupied France, adds no insight or revelations to the original story, and takes too long to do it. The play lasts for only an hour and forty-four minutes but feels much longer.
The whole affair gets off on the wrong foot with a lengthy exposition introducing the characters, given by a character called “Prologue,” and, unfortunately, the whole play feels like one lengthy exposition. There is very little action or drama onstage, as characters talk to the audience while the other actors look at them dramatically. There is no real feeling that these people are interacting with each other on the stage. Sarah Baird’s portrayal of Antigone, in particular, is done in a showboat style and does not connect with any of the other characters, projecting only to the audience instead.
Exposition and speeches would be interesting if well-written (or well-translated), but this play alternates between pretentious pontifications like, “We are content because we don’t have to die,” or “Hope is the most unsettling thing, isn’t it?” and even banal everyday dialogue that still sounds stilted and fake. No one talks like that, regardless of whether or not they are going to die. The play reminds us constantly that Antigone will die; unfortunately endless foreshadowing does not provide interesting dialogue.
“Tragedy is calm,” says the Prologue character in another of her meaningless monologues towards the middle of the play. Allright, but does it have to be boring? After half an hour, the audience has abandoned all interest in these characters – whether they live or die, their motivations, even why they’re talking to each other and fighting in the first place. There is no suspense in the story; this is Antigone, one of the foremost ancient Greek tragedies. Since the audience knows exactly where this is all going, the only reason to stay involved would be interest in the characters or in what they are saying, neither of which is provided. Of course the play doesn’t help with its endless “save those tears, you’ll need them later”-style foreshadowing.
The costumes were very appropriate to the setting, whatever it was, in their combination of Greek styles and modern day clothing. The lighting was subtle enough to not be distracting, except for a few ill-chosen red washes meant to highlight dramatic moments, which only succeeded in bludgeoning the audience over the head with the point.
This was in fact the common problem: every theme was so well explained, so carefully mentioned, so thoroughly underscored that it’s a wonder we didn’t all end up with giant bruises on our foreheads.
Antigone runs Jan. 31 – Feb. 4 in Poulton Hall. Student tickets are $9.
