Antigone by Jean Anouilh
Directed by Anna Migliarisi
7:30pm, Lower Denton, Acadia March 6th – 9th & 13th -16th
“Antigone is right – but Creon is not wrong.† (Albert Camus)
Jean Anouilh’s Antigone is a modern take on Sophocles’ 5th century tragedy. It’s the end of a savage civil war. Antigone’s brothers Eteocles and Polynices – unlucky children of Oedipus – are both slaughtered vying for power. Their uncle Creon becomes king. Under his order, Eteocles is given a state funeral, but Polynices’ body is left to rot unburied as a dire warning to would-be traitors. Polynices’ fate is repugnant to Antigone and she attempts to bury him. Creon sends her to her death. Whereas in Sophocles, Creon is the cruel autocrat very much at the centre of the story, in Anouilh’s version, Creon is a sensitive and reluctant leader, and Antigone a fierce and complicated heroine. Antigone premiered in German-occupied France at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris in February 1944. It remains one of Anouilh’s most celebrated and most produced works.
