A few words about the play

The theatrical show deals with the concepts of power and resistance to power, truth versus lies, woman versus man, love and brotherly love, the conflict of the human with the political law. The heroes-visions of Sophocles meet the modern heroes of Anui pushing them towards the “tragic act”. The show has no specific time frame. It could address and concern yesterday, today and tomorrow equally. It is a hymn to life, death and love.

The premise

After the duel of Polyneices and Eteocles, the sons of Oedipus, at the seventh gate of Thebes and their mutual death, Creon assumes the power of the city. As an absolute monarch, he announces his arbitrary decision to bury Eteocles with all the honors befitting a defender of the homeland and to leave Polyneices, who wanted to conquer it with an army, unburied. The penalty for the violator of the order is categorically defined as death. Antigone, tragic sister of the slain, declares her firm decision to bury Polyneices, disobeying the king’s law and ignoring the consequences of her act.

Director’s note

I’ll borrow David Mamet’s quote: “The accomplishment of a great deed simply, on stage or off, is called heroism.”
I think this kept me busy throughout the many months of rehearsals:
How you can “simply” stand and say your words on stage.
How you can “simply” look at the other person and tell them a truth.
How someone can get out of bed one day and do a heroic deed, “simply” because the occasion called for it.
How each of us can become a hero for “simply” doing the right thing at the right time.

Perhaps this is the main reason why I chose to deal with both Antigones, treating the modern Antigone of Anuis as a “transformative echo” (to borrow George Steiner’s phrase) of the Antigone of our great tragedian Sophocles.
Sophocles’ heroes in this play are memories-visions that visit Anui’s heroes to induce them to engage in the tragic. It is the “potentially heroic” that exists in the essence of each of us. And as Seler very characteristically mentions “the tragic is a primary component of the universe itself”.

I want to thank from the bottom of my heart the actors of the show who worked hard, with love and trust for each other and managed, even those who are performing for the first time, to stand bravely on stage and articulate their words simply and truly.

Antigone’s message

It was a snowy university under the Rockies. I had just finished a talk on ancient Greek tragedy when a student raised her pencil. “Are you telling us what Antigone’s message is?” “Please” was unknown to this synchronized representative of the student youth, but the question made up for it even more than that. Now I, like a talkative Greek, not being used to the American craze for epigrammatic recipes, was for a moment dumbfounded. Certainly, it would be easier for me to orate for half an hour, than to condense the meaning of Sophocles’ work into a sentence. That’s why I said the first thing that came to my mind. “The right of the individual to choose his freedom”. I remember the answer, satisfied. It had a democratic flavor and at the same time, it was easy to remember. Something similar to “we want love and not war”. A slogan! Then I had some doubts about this easy epigrammatic way out. Now I don’t have them anymore. I think that really this deeper message of Sophocles: the right of man to choose his freedom.

Alexis Solomos (note on Antigone – Brecht)

Distribution

Yolanda Kaperda: Anigone
Vasilis Siafis: Kreon
Spiros Varfis: Guard
Eleftheris Pantazi: Prologos, Messenger
Maria Ntalaouti: Evridiki
Nikos Manthos: Aimon
Agatha Pappa: Ismine, Aggelos

Choros: the troupe
Musician on stage: Panagiotis Tellis