Antigone
Antigone by Sophocles is our first extract for the first scripted performance of our theatre studies A-Level. It is the last of the Three Theban Plays, a series of tragedies written by Greek playwright Sophocles in the 5th century BCE. The trilogy follows a connected story of a family and focuses on the theme of fate and divine law.
The first play, Oedipus Rex (The King), tells the story of a boy who, when he is born, is prophesised to go on to marry his mother and kill his father. His parents abandon him to prevent this happening - but unknowingly the child, Oedipus, goes on to become king, kill his father, and marry his mother as his queen. The play ends with the mother committing suicide and a dramatic monologue in which Oedipus gouges his eyes out and exiles himself from his city of Thebes, unworthy to see the world after the crimes he has committed. In Oedipus at Colonis, the second play, Oedipus wanders the countryside with his daughter, Antigone, leading him, in order to repent for his sins. He is eventually forgiven by the Gods and he is told wherever he dies will become holy land - this happens at Colonis, outside of Athens, despite trying to be convinced by his mother's brother, Creon to return to Thebes.
The final play, Antigone, takes place after Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus, have killed each other after a civil war over the rule of the city. Eteocles threatened to take their joint rule of the city, so Polynices attacked with foreign mercenaries. When Creon takes the rule (instead of Antigone), he declares that only Eteocles may be buried, as Polynices is a traitor - Antigone defies him, and is locked in a cave starve as punishment. His son Haemon, engaged to Antigone, comes to try and convince him to save her, but Creon pays no attention. When the seer Tiresias explains that the Gods are displeased by this punishment, Creon finally goes to release Antigone, but it is too late - she has hung herself, and Haemon tries to kill his own father before killing himself, and finally his own wife, Eurydice commits suicide too. At the end, Creon has lost everything.
Once we had understood the plot fully, the characters within the play, and more on Greek theatre, we moved on to working with the script in the style of many different practitioners.
Berkoff
Firstly, we looked at the work of Berkoff, who is himself inspired greatly by Greek chorus and uses mime to create props or set. In this section, directed by our teacher, the chorus was played by a group of office workers, and we worked from Page 65 to 66 of Robert Fagles's translation (Penguin Classics), the first chorus speech of the play. They lay out the setting and describe the war that has now come to an end now. In this modern version, Creon is a corporate boss. We used stylised movements in the chorus whilst certain actors broke out of the physical sequence to deliver their lines, the whole scene moving together. This makes the action more relatable and a moral lesson to a modern, work-based society. The action happens around a table in centre stage at which everyone is working. This was a very interesting use of Berkoff and the similarities between Greek chorus and his chorus were immediately similar, and very engaging.
Brecht
We also looked at the political message sent by the script. Working with a partner, we chose the duologue between Creon and Haemon from Page 96 to 99 in which they argue over the fate of Antigone, the law of the Gods and the rule of Thebes. This extract in particular shows Creon to be a poor ruler - stubborn, cruel, selfish and egotistical. To emphasise that, we created a clear gestus for Creon (consisting of a high pitched, constantly loud and squawking voice with a tense and angry physicality confined to a small posture) as well as one completely contrasting this for Haemon, who is the righteous and good natured son of Creon (who stands like a classic hero figure, chest out in a confident posture, and a deep, calm voice).
Stanislavski acting
When working towards the final product, we first had to choose our extract. With a new partner for this piece, we chose the two monologues of Haemon and Creon that precede the previous duologue selected. The attached coursework below and the notes detail this whole process far clearer, along with the script annotations that I wrote up.
Punchdrunk set and design
In conjunction with our work on Antigone we also focused on immersive theatre, in particular, Felix Barret's interpretation thereof. Below are some photos and videos of our development process and final product.
These images are of our first set design, aiming to show a small meeting room or study within an ancient palace. The chaotic mess of academia and books, trinkets and treasures feeds into this as well as symbolically referencing the extract in which education, anarchy and power are all important themes. We also burned incense to create the smell of a palace, used Rachmaninoff as our music for a grand, powerful mood, and used lighting within the set from candles and ornate lamps, also leaving the set quite dark and mysterious.
Before this, we had already created small sets or boxes that were intended to show a specific emotion (of which I chose fear). All Punchdrunk sets should bring a clear, visceral emotion as well as being as natural and accurate as possible, through the use of all five senses.
These photos are off the set as it developed in a completely different direction, and depicts the inside of a London tube station being used by a post apocalyptic society as a nuclear bunker, specifically the meeting room or study of the new leader of this group of people. It should radiate a mystery and a fear, an exposition of the true dirty nature of rule.
Here is my first draft of my reflective report coursework, for the first extract.
In our first scripted extract, we worked on the classic Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. With my partner, we decided to work on Creon and Haemon's monologues as our scene. We also chose to perform this in the style of Punchdrunk, a type of modern immersive theatre. I played the character of Haemon, in the role of a performer.
We chose this extract because it presented an opportunity to display an interesting father-son relationship that was relevant to the modern day because of the themes of power and justice in everything from countries to our own families. However, the antiquity of the text and plot presented a challenge to make it understandable for our audience. The monologue style of speech also meant that obvious action was limited, so we had to find other ways of making it more engaging.
We began rehearsals by discussing what our aim for the extract was and decided that we wanted to use this discussion to show the qualities of a good leader by contrasting the tyrannical Creon with the good-natured Haemon. It is Creon's hamartia that causes the tragic loss of life at the end of the play, so Sophocles was clearly aiming to depict him as a bad example to others. Whereas in ancient Greece, it is his disobedience of the gods that brings about his fate, we wanted to show him as cruel, stubborn and dismissive of Haemon because of a superiority complex towards others. Moreover, we wanted to develop their strange father-son relationship that is dominated by Creon's concern for power – should he be confident when talking to his dad, or respectful when addressing the King (or ruler)?
We chose to use the style of Punchdrunk for many reasons. Firstly, they often use well-known stories, such as Antigone, so that the audience isn't completely lost and confused in the experience – but more importantly, Punchdrunk uses all the senses in naturalistic acting and intricate set design to give strong emotions to the audience. Our scene was very emotionally intense and intimate, so using the small space that the basement of our theatre emphasised that further and was almost like opening the back door on our characters' minds. The monologues become less like distant speeches and more like internal views. We also leaned into naturalism by using many Stanislavski techniques around our performance, especially actions and objectives. This helped us to improve our interactions and make everything more engaging.
By reading Sophocles' Three Theban Tragedies, I found that all are based around the city of Thebes in crisis, and the question of power that ensues (from Oedipus's arrival after King Laius's death to the ascension of Creon after Polynices's and Eteocles's civil war.) This began an idea of setting the extract in a post-apocalyptic future world – a group of people in a crisis that is far more shocking and tabooer and therefore fitting to the Greek tragedy genre without setting it in a distant and unrelatable period. Tragedy shows the most brutal parts of humankind that we don't want to see and forces us to watch to learn about ourselves – this led our decision to show a civilisation suffering from nuclear fallout, a disaster that is scarily possible that precipitates a similar power struggle. Setting it in ancient Greece may have kept us closer to the themes of religion and divine law pervading this trilogy – we experimented with set design in this realm particularly, but this would have lost the effectiveness through emotional proximity to our audience. Whilst Sophocles wanted his audience to develop a respect for the gods (as Greek theatre was largely about worship, particular of the God of Theatre, Wine and Fertility himself, Dionysus), we wanted our audience to develop a dislike towards Creon.
As previously mentioned, the dramatic intention of my character was to juxtapose Creon. Through reading the play and mining the text for moments with Haemon and especially focusing on the scenes before and after our chosen one, I believe that his super objective is to have the best for everyone – his father, his fiancée, and his city. In this scene it narrows down to saving Antigone whilst not offending Creon. The intrigue to his monologue comes from the assortment of different methods of persuasion (his actions). We worked on this by choosing many strange ways to see which were the most effective, from childish begging to a far braver assertion. However, this could have been worked on far more, especially through off-text work to explore the characters' relationship deeper. Haemon is clever and knows how to manipulate his father – but when even his contrast of sympathy drawing, wise education and stern commandments fail, we see the unchangeable Creon for who he is – a bad ruler.
During this rehearsal period we also attended an A-Level Live Theatre Conference at the National Theatre to watch an adaptation of the plot of Antigone, written and directed by Alexander Zeldin, starring Emma d'Arcy and Tobias Menzies, called The Other Place. Before the performance we were lucky enough to listen to a lecture from Professor of Greek Theatre, Dr. Lucy Jackson, that taught us more context around the play and how this modern production relates to the ancient play, as well as a Q&A with the director himself which made his dramatic intentions and inspirations far easier to see. This interpretation was also very useful to see the plot in a more modern setting and to really recreate the full effect of the taboo and shock of Greek tragedy to make it more relevant to the 21st century. There is a full review of this production on my blog.