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Do the Right Thing
"Antigone" about act of defiance.
By Lisa A. Dubois
APRIL 27, 1998:
From the opening moments of Jean Anouilh's Antigone,
everybody in the theater knows the outcome Antigone, a healthy
adolescent, is going to die. The audience knows it. The supporting
characters know it. And, better than anyone else, Antigone knows it. Having
gotten that little issue out of the way, the playwright forces his audience
to analyze the complexities of the process by which that happens.
"This play is about the act of defiance alone," explains David
Quicksall, who is directing a production of Antigone that runs this
Friday and Saturday at War Memorial Auditorium; the staging is a
collaboration between Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Barry Scott
Productions. "Not only is the act of defiance one of a subject against a
king, but a woman against a man, youth against age, right against wrong."
Given the ground rule that nobody messes with destiny, the audience is
required to find consolation in this very dilemma: Are people noble or
foolish if, fully aware of the consequences, they make unpopular choices?
Should we admire or scorn those who accept personal responsibility in
situations where they know the outcome will be futile?
Adapted from Sophocles' classic Greek rendering of the same legend,
Anouilh first presented his modernized take on Antigone in 1944,
during the Nazi occupation of France. Seen as a placation of the German
fascists residing in Paris, the production received a mixed reception among
the French, and a decidedly cool reception when it played in New York later
that year. In more recent times, however, Anouilh's absurdist translation
has grown in popularity.
Following the tradition of classic Greek theater, the chorus is used as
a central vehicle for imparting information. In this case, one person,
David Alford, comments on the action while detaching himself from both the
drama and the viewers. He is the consummate third-party witness, the
ultimate objective reporter.
The saga goes like this: After Antigone's brothers Eteocles and
Polynices kill each other in a battle over their mutually inherited throne,
King Creon of Thebes chooses to honor Eteocles with a full burial and leave
Polynices in the field to rot. Antigone, who is betrothed to Creon's son
Haemon, confronts her future father-in-law and insists that Polynices also
receive a proper burial; otherwise, his spirit will be doomed to eternal
damnation. Creon refuses, so Antigone buries Polynices herself.
When a messenger reports the teenager's brazen act, Creon tries every
tactic possible--short of leaving Polynices' corpse underground--to mollify
the situation. But Antigone is absolutely unwilling to compromise. Since
the standard penalty for crossing the king is death, Creon decides to
entomb the impertinent girl in a cave, expecting her to meet her demise
slowly while gasping for air. Ever defiant, Antigone chooses not to
suffocate and hangs herself instead.
Says Denice Hicks, who plays the title role, "This play shows it's not
how you die, but how you live. When we find her in the beginning, Antigone
is just as confused by what's happening as everyone else. But through the
course of that 90 minutes [of the play], she finds her voice. I think she's
a hero because she stands up for what she believes and makes strong
choices, saying, 'No, I will not compromise.' Creon plays politics, but she
[refuses to play] the games of society."
Barry Scott, who portrays the Theban sovereign, is more sympathetic
toward the king. He argues that Creon was once a lover of poetry and music,
but he has had to forego his own pleasures to tend to the more important
job of running the country. (Didn't Bill Clinton recently make this exact
same comment?) Although Creon knows that both Eteocles and Polynices were
tyrants and traitors, he makes one of them a hero in an attempt to pacify
his political colleagues. Instead of solving the problem, however, this
edict creates even bigger issues.

Decided
Denice Hicks and Barry Scott in Antigone
Photo by Susan Adcock
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"Creon makes a decision because he thinks it's the right thing to do,
but it causes him great pain," Scott says. "But someone's got to stand in
the void and keep things moving."
Quicksall visually frames this presentation with an eclectic set design.
Classic Greek motifs refer to Sophoclean times, while elegant touches of
1940s Paris place the show in the context of its original staging.
The play's ambiguity is its single most fascinating element, muses
Quicksall, and one that he hopes will appeal particularly to Generation
Xers. "In all these TV news analysis shows, Generation X kids are worried
about their place in the world and their insignificance in an overbearing
society," he says. "The message of this play is that those feelings are as
timeless as anything. The struggle has always gone on and always will."
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