Antigone (review)

 Spoilers Ahoy!

Okay two things many audience members might not realize going in to seeing this production.

First, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, who accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.  Upon learning the truth he blinded himself and fled the city of which he was King.

Second, this specific script was written (originally, in French) in Paris during the Nazi Occupation, so plenty of the audience were in fact either Nazis or Nazi sympathizers.

Think about that for a few seconds.  

Now this production of Antigone uses a new translation of the Jean Anouilh text, by modern American playwright Neil LaBute.  The result in most ways simply makes the story feel more modern, more familiar to an American audience on a visceral level.  In the process, let me make clear the show loses not one drop of its raw power, which is a considerable.  

Chorus (Anthony Sannazzaro) introduces us to the cast, and fills us in on some backstory as well as allowing us to get ready.  This is a tragedy.  Our central character Antigone (Anabella Nguyen) is going to die.  Her uncle King Creon (David E. Frank) used to love to prowl antique shops, way back when before a crown ended up on his head.

The essence of the plot concerns the recent civil war in Thebes between the two sons of Oedipus, who killed each other in the final bloody battle.  One was given a hero's burial.  The other, left to rot, which is seen as sacrilegeous, with the death penalty for anyone who seeks to bury him.  Both these dead princes are brothers to Antigone and her much prettier sister Ismene (Alyssa Frey).  The former intends to bury her brother, knowing this is the right thing to do.  Even if she dies.  Knowing she will die.  Knowing the body will be unburied almost immediately.  And she does not want to die.  She wants to marry Creon's son Haemon (Daniel Strausman) who loves her.  Wants to live.  But that doesn't matter.  She intends to do what is right.

Which puts the some guards (Gifford Irving, Ralph Radebaugh, Hallie Stickley) in a tougher situation even than they know.  Of course they have to watch over the rotting corpse.  And when they capture this young woman covering it, they have to bring her tied up and gagged to the palace. She says she's the King's niece, and they don't believe her.  Of course!  Then the King confirms that is exactly who she is, so he sends the guards into the next room to wait and don't talk to anyone.

So the King wants to save Antigone.  Makes sense.  If she'll just behave, he "take care" of those guards and they can go on with their lives.

But Antigone refuses.  Creon almost begs her.  Threatens, tempts, conjoles, tries his best to persuade, seeks to justify his own rules.  She does not budge.  We always know that is how it is going to do.  Antigone WILL die.  Yet we hope she won't.  Even the Chorus goes so far as to beg Creon to simply pardon her.  

Antigone, both character and story, prove inexorable.  Creon's efforts at their heart prove cruel, arrogant, tragic for himself as well as everyone else.  Neither will bend.  Neither will change.  Neither, though, ever seem anything other than human.  Just as neither come across as fanatics, given when they do believe.  And the whole ensemble creates the framework (including Dani Frank as the Page, and Martha Duncan as the Nurse) which makes all this feel real.  In a very real way one feels this fictional version of Thebes as real as Los Angeles in this, our year of the Lord 2025.  As indeed it is, in some way.

So. The story hurts.  How could it not?  The stakes feel real, the consequences vivid, powerful, and horrific.

Familiar, too.  Which is of course the point.

Warning:  For those concerned, the play includes smoking and full frontal nudity (which made me flinch because of the context).

Antigone plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 4pm until October 5, 2025 at City Garage Theatre, Bergamot, T1 Space, 2525 Michigan Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90404