‘Antigone’ @ Stolen Shakespeare Guild
Photos courtesy of Stolen Shakespeare Guild; costumes & masks by Lauren Morgan
—Jan Farrington
Now wait a minute. Whose ancient Greek play is this, anyway?
Sophocles called his drama Antigone—the story of a nobly born young woman of that name, determined to flout the king’s law (and obey the gods) to bury her beloved dead brother. And yes, the stubborn and loving Antigone (Cheyenne Haynes) is our focus for a while. But after the first few scenes, isn’t it Creon the king (Steven Young) who plants himself at center stage?
Ranting, raging, accusing (and shouting louder than anyone else), the newly crowned Creon is the decider-in-chief, planning and plotting every moment to do exactly what he wants. “I will not change my mind!” he bellows. He knows best. He knows all. And no events, no evidence, no information can sway him. He’s a one-man band, a tyrant, a bully who expects groveling and obedience from the people of Thebes.
May he and his kind (as another stage character once said) stay “far away from us.”
This second play of Stolen Shakespeare Guild’s annual Classics Festival (well-directed by SSG co-founders Jason and Lauren Morgan) isn’t something modern audiences get to experience all that often. But using a recent English translation (2001) by Paul Woodruff, the University of Texas at Austin’s most beloved classicist, this Antigone comes through in everyday modern language that feels fresh and to the point.
We recognize our own times in the autocratic and self-centered Creon, but also find ourselves in other characters. A Watchman (Kyle Sapienza) rushes onstage, babbling in fright that “someone” has buried Antigone’s brother. “I didn’t do this thing, and I don’t know who did. And it wouldn’t be fair if I got hurt.” For the Watchman, Antigone is a story about him—how human and timeless is that?
And we see our faces reflected in the assembled Chorus of Theban citizens, praying to the gods for help and guidance, first taking one side—but easily persuaded (by fear or self-interest, or dis-information) to throw their support the other way. People are people, whether now or in the Greek city-states of centuries ago.
Haynes is fierce and unbending as Antigone, whose frightened sister Ismene (Cory Carter) begs her to soften her plan: “We are women and we do not fight with men,” she says. Antigone says her forbidden funeral rites “pleases those who matter most”—her much-loved brother and the gods.
Donna McNamara is quietly strong as Eurydice, Creon’s wife, who tries to soften his anger with little result. Their son Haemon (Hunter Wilson-Leal), engaged to marry Antigone, tries in vain to reason with his father. And as the blind prophet and soothsayer Teiresias (who gets around ancient Greek literature), Allen Walker approaches the king gently at first—but in a startling scene, takes center stage to blaze a warning of what’s to come for Creon if he continues on this path.
But Creon cannot be moved: in that, he and his niece are much alike. Steven Young, seen several months ago in an age-reversed Romeo and Juliet (Plague Mask Players), makes a rafter-shaking king, fearful of enemies, driven by his own worst instincts. And stage actors all should raise their hands like the Chorus and pray to the gods for a stage voice like that.
In the end, in a scene with echoes of the future Hamlet, there’s hell to pay, and as Antigone says: “Grief for the whole huge disaster of us/Our brilliant family” (doomed by the unwitting incest of her father Oedipus and mother/grandmother Jocasta; it’s a long story). Antigone was written around the year 441 B.C—nearly 2,500 years ago. It feels strange, wonderful, and terrible to discover how deeply we know and understand these ancient people on the stage.
WHEN: October 12-22 (playing in rotation with Moliere’s The Miser, October 6-21)
WHERE: Fort Worth Arts/Sanders Theatre, 1300 Gendy St. (Museum District), Fort Worth TX
