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Stubborn, devout, doomed: ‘The Anti-gone’ reviewed
When The Anti-gone begins, the only thing onstage is a lectern – stark in the harsh white light and terribly lonely – before Ismene (Kitty Brown) walks uncertainly down the aisle and stares, torn and lost, into the audience. This is Carfax Productions and Atelier V’s latest play in a nutshell: sparse but affecting, and bolstered by the performances of its incredibly talented cast.
Sophocles’ original tragedy is simple, though executed with aplomb: in the wake of Oedipus’ (yes, that Oedipus) exile, his sons Eteocles and Polynices have died fighting each other for the throne. Creona, the new ruler of Thebes, has decreed that Eteocles will be buried as a hero, but Polynices’s body will be left exposed to the elements on the battlefield and be prey for the carrion birds, the harshest punishment the Greeks could imagine. The play’s opening scene lays this out for all to see: Antigone (Rose Hansen) seeks to give her brother Polynices a proper burial in defiance of Creona’s edict, but her sister Ismene, too frightened to imagine defying Creona, refuses to help.
Antigone is a story that turns on three points – Antigone, Ismene, and Creona – and all three more than pull their weight here. Hansen is fantastic as Antigone, turning vitriolic righteousness into reluctant affection from one breath to the next whilst striking the perfect balance of anger and anguish. Brown’s Ismene plays off her perfectly as the helpless watcher staring after her wild sister, storming to her own doom. “Go then if you must,” Ismene tells Antigone, resigned, “but remember: no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still.”
Director Marcus F.P. has reimagined the play for a Victorian London setting. It’s brought to life primarily through costume designer Rowena Sears’ impressively detailed vision: the sisters are dressed to contrast each other in every way possible. Ismene with her tightly-plaited updo, not a hair out of place; Antigone with her unbound, voluminous curls. Ismene with only a sliver of skin peeking out from between her elbow-length gloves and the sleeve of her dress; Antigone with bare arms, shoulders, collarbones. Ismene’s face pale and panicked; Antigone’s flushed with rage. They’re both in funeral black for the first scene, but when Antigone reemerges, dragged before Creona to answer for the ‘crime’ of burying her brother, she’s now in white, a sacrificial lamb with a stubborn jut to her jaw.
F.P’s other major change is that Creon, the sisters’ uncle who has usurped the city and turned tyrant, has been made Creona (Rosan Trisic), the third point of this triangle. Statuesque and menacing, Trisic stalks around the stage in full, bloody crimson, delivering every line with crisp, forbidding enunciation. It’s an interesting change that removes the gendered aspect of the Antigone-Creon conflict to further emphasise the clash between state and family, order and justice, the human and the divine – but also has the added benefit of introducing a new dimension to the character dynamics: Creona’s tyranny is contextualised against the backdrop of the patriarchy. “A man you have always wished to be,” Haemon (Sonny Fox), her son and Antigone’s betrothed, accuses, lashing out at her upon learning she’s sentenced Antigone to death.
At this point, it would be remiss not to mention the Chorus – played here by a choir with full musical accompaniment, piano and all. Musical director Richard Meehan oversees an impressive and well-coordinated crew that delivers interludes that are rousing and solemn in turns, mocked ironically by Lady Smythe (Sophia Lee) and Lord Fothergill (Ellie Dinning), who switch seamlessly across the fourth wall from singers to servants.
But it’s the side characters that steal the show, chief among them Lady Sentry (Rachel Wadie). Clad in pale pink with a jaunty hat that trails feathers as she scurries along and affecting a querulous, trembling voice, Wadie provides a much-needed shot of levity. She’s saddled with the burden of various expository monologues – including one where she has to recount Haemon’s suicide after he finds Antigone dead – but shoulders it admirably, even dropping the act at opportune moments to hint at a hidden cunning in Sentry before re-donning it just as quickly. The other standout is Tiresias (Ali Khan), who imbues his role with an incredibly unsettling physicality, shuffling barefoot across the stage with his pupils reduced to unnerving black pinpricks.
As a way to defuse the original’s sustained bleakness, the play’s tragicomic tone pays off – for the most part, at least. Its only stumble comes at the end, where Creona realises what she’s done as servants present her with the bodies of Haemon and Ismene. As she begins to sob wildly, Sentry hops genially over the corpses with an awkward joke, and the servants follow suit, gingerly stepping around the bodies in a moment that’s played – rather jarringly – for laughs. It leaves the audience with no time for the emotional weight to sink in or Trisic’s masterful breakdown – she’s crying in horror, so violently you can see the tears and mucus dripping to the floor.
As the Chorus swells with a final song, Creona opens her mouth in a cry of sorrow, but she’s silent and inaudible beneath the music, a hair-raising final image that pulls the play back together. It’s anchored, ultimately, by a clarity of vision and a deftness of execution that student productions can sometimes lack. In contrast, The Anti-gone knows exactly what it should be: a reimagining of a classic with a flavour entirely its own.
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