skygiants

sovay's post reminded me that I have not yet written up the production of Antigone I saw last week, and since this upcoming weekend is the last of the run, I really should!

It's Anouilh's Antigone, first off -- the one written in occupied France, in 1940. I took a seminar in college that was all just variants on Antigone, and Anouilh's is the one that stuck with me, even more than Sophocles.

The thing that sticks with me most about this particular production of Antigone is the absolutely phenomenal chorus: three angry, exhausted, post-apocalyptically-costumed people communicating in a combination of spoken English and ASL, who know they can't change anything about what they're going to witness, and still take a moment to try.

Antigone is also extremely good, as are most of the cast. Casting-wise, Antigone is black and Ismene and most of the rest of the cast are white, which puts a very pointed and deliberate emphasis on some of the Anouilh dialogue about Antigone's attractiveness or lack thereof in comparison with Ismene.

Haemon distracted me by reminding me awfully of a dude I used to work with, but that wasn't his fault. Creon is the production's weak link (not through any fault of his own, he came in as a last-minute rescue two weeks before the show) but he's doing his best.

But honestly, you could come for the chorus alone and it would be worth it. The ASL team, I'm told, came up with their own signs for the names of the characters; the moment I first had a feeling in the play was the first time I saw the sign for 'Antigone', a hand passed over the eyes and then lifting in a fist. It felt like Antigone. It was very good. There's also a moment, very late in the play, when Creon's page becomes the first and only character to try to communicate with the chorus in ASL. That may have been my favorite moment in the show.