The play Antigone is a tragedy play that most of the characters were killed at the end. The central theme of this play is “civil disobedience” and is about the controversies between gender, power, age, religion, beliefs, and laws. The script begins with Antigone asking Ismene to bury their brother because Creon, their uncle passed down a decree saying no one is allowed to bury Polynices because he betrayed his country can killed his own brother. Antigone chose to disobey the law and was sentenced to death. Every one advised Creon to rethink his decision, but he didn’t listen until the end when everything was too late.
There was a total of 11 actor used in this production (9 male and 2 female). This production is not a traditional play that have all the performer stand on stage and speak. It included the uses of music. Slow movement/dance, and the inclusion of English and Ancient Greek. The play started with Creon sitting on a podium facing the Leader of Chorus that was standing on another podium on the stage. Above the Leader’s head there is a machete hanging in midair indicating that he has to live under the restriction of laws that can kill him anytime. Throughout the play all the performer’s movements were slow and they emphasis each word they say.
Which can be another way of telling the audience the difficulties of staying on the “right path. ” After Creon had moved to the center of the stage, all the chorus joined in and all of them were doing the same exact movements, for instance the hand motion and the facial expression they made when everyone was laughing out loud and crying out loud. The chorus and Creon had the same goals at the beginning, but towards the middle Creon left the group and came back on stage with a golden fabric. Which can express that Creon became “different” with the power of being a king.
He started to threaten others using this golden fabric—his power. Another interesting thing that happened was that when Haemon appear on stage, he was also following every movement of Creon because he is his father, but the call and response impression between their relationship changed when Haemon asked his father to release Antigone and Creon refused. He had lost Haemon’s respects and wills to follow that kind of father. Toward the end of the play when Creon knew that Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice die he appeared on stage carrying a heavy block that shows his guilt.
Creon never let go of that block until he was “dead” in the performance. The play closed with all of the performer covering their mouth with a black fabric, which gives an impression that ‘they had said enough in the play and now they have to be silence’ and also presents this silence mood in the audience mind. Even with their mouth covered, they can still use their body to express their idea. The lights went down with all the performers lying on the floor. The last thing the audience saw wasn’t any character, instead it was the machete that was hanging in mid-air.
Which bring the audience back to the main cause of this play, dangerous of rebellion. The lighting of this production was very bright, sitting in the audience seat you can see every bits of dust and spits that were coming toward you. In contrast with the dark background, the strong lighting pulls the audience’s attention to the point where they want them to focus on. As it was mentioned earlier, the machete was always in attention until the very end. Other than bring the audience attention to certain points another reason for the lighting to be so bright is for the audience to see everything that is happening on stage.
From the small details to the big meanings behind the movements. The costume they wore was black shirt and black pant which indicated the idea of being lost. There was also the use of gold, red, and white fabric; different colors represents different characters. Creon had the golden fabric to show his power of being a king. The Leader of Chorus had a grey net like covering him which shows that he is “lost” or blocked by the power of the net/Creon. The Leader broke free from the fabric when Creon understood that he was wrong. Antigone had the red fabric shows her braveness and strength of disobeying the law.
It also foreshadows her death at the end. Ismene had the white fabric that represent the recessive side of her comparing to Antigone. My experience for this production wasn’t what || expected. There were less talking and more action involved to express the character’s feeling. There were many ideas that were a good experience in this play, for instance the uses of the colors, the identical movements, and facial expressions. In my preference this play wasn’t good, but I do recommend other to see it to develop another perspective of seeing a play like this production.
