Theatre
Antigone exits
Minerva Theatre, Chichester
3/5
Clarity undermined by oversimplification
A large white futuristic-looking spherical shape with a narrow slit in the middle is set up at the back of the stage. It is not immediately obvious what Alex Lowde’s design represents. We discover later that this is a mountain side but also a stone tomb. The actors carefully clamber onto it by using a large rock at the bottom. When Antigone performs religious ablutions she pours a black oil-like liquid in a circular shape on the floor. By the end of the play most protagonists have been smeared with this substance and the audience members carefully avoid staining their shoes on the way out. All the scrambling and staining is an amusing challenge to health and safety, but in essence the pristine whiteness of the tomb contrasts with the sticky blackness of the contagious liquid painting the ethical sides to this ancient conflict.
Nina Segal’s retelling of the myth of Antigone takes on the form of unadorned storytelling by seven characters dressed in everyday clothes. Sophocles’ Antigone traditionally runs well over two hours, but here the story has been condensed to just over one hour. Some things are gained and some lost in this transformation. While this approach takes the story back to basics, reveals with clarity the ethical lines of conflict, and removes some of the verbiage and plot intricacies which don’t really mean much today, some complexities are inevitably lost, such as Creon’s viewpoint, which is much more logical and valid than Segal’s version suggests. Also the plain clothes take away from the suspension of disbelief, a core ingredient of theatre.
Antigone is a daughter of Oedipus, the cursed ruler of Thebes. She has three siblings, two brothers, the twins Eteocles and Polynices, and one sister Ismene. After Oedipus’s death Eteocles and Polynices decide to share the throne, one year each. However, when Polynices arrives to claim the throne after a year, Eteocles refuses, and they kill each other in a fight. Eteocles is buried, but Polynices’ body is left to rot. The uncle Creon takes the throne and decrees that whoever buries Polynices will be sentenced to death. Antigone defies Creon’s order and buries her brother Polynices. Creon refuses to pardon her and orders that she be buried alive in a cave.
Is it family duty that motivates Antigone or simple human decency? After all the death and misfortune, she simply wants to see her brother Polynices mourned with dignity just like her other brother Eteocles. She sees no point in taking sides in a conflict when so much death surrounds her and the family curse will not shift.
The seven actors on stage both narrate and take on their distinct roles. Most of them also contribute a personal contemporary story about death and mourning which reflects on Sophocles’ play. These in appearance improvised stories are aligned with stages of life, starting with the first sighting of death in childhood and ending with an old-age brush with Dignitas.
The ensemble directed by Jeff James does well to hold it all together. Nina Casselis is a strong teenage Antigone, uncompromising to the end. Testimony Adegbite who plays Polynices and various other smaller roles has a striking solo in his ‘personal story’ about a dead fox, the first dead body he has ever seen. Brandon Bassir plays Creon’s son Haemon with convincing and moving spirit and depth. Max Bennett who plays Creon comes to life when he temporarily exits the role to tell us about his dead daughter. Melody Chikakane Brown as Tiresias adds much needed wisdom to the mix.
The playwright seems to be intent on bringing the complexities of the text closer to younger and less-experienced theatre goers, although I note that the audience on the evening I attended was predominantly elderly and I would venture has seen many plays before. Nevertheless this approach is mostly successful in holding the viewer’s interest, and the experimentation with the text does yield some fresh perspectives, but there are many moments that are too plain and banal, particularly in the latter stages of the play. There are some sparky lines at the start, such as when Antigone refuses to be called a girl, but once she has held out in her resistance, her character becomes weaker and aimless, but not in a way that would appear natural in the circumstances. When Creon has doubts he appears frustratingly two-dimensional.
Segal has gone too far in her simplification and at times this play appears to be no more than a lesson on how to explain the intricacies of a Greek tragedy to children. This loose retelling of Antigone retains the powerful story, represents the moral choices starkly and complements them with modern fragments of mourning, but in the radical simplifying it loses the ethical ambiguities of the original text and gives in to a superficial confrontation of generations.