Antigone
Antigone By Sophocles
Directed by John DiDonna
Starring Max Hilend, Chelsea Swearingen
Annie Russell Theatre Plaza, Winter Park FL</strong>
King Creon (Hilend) doesn’t firmly grip his ship of state’s helm. Only Toughest King On The Peninsula can control the revolts and conflicting claims to power. Today’s crisis revolves around brothers Eteocles (Mary Kate Dwyer) and Polyneices (Dustin Schwab), both holding strong claims to his throne. Fortunately they commit mutual fratricide in battle, and Creon refuses Polyneices proper burial rites, just because he can. Flaunting this social convention creates a source of manifold strife for him and all Thebes. Polyneices’ sister Antigone (Swearingen) ignores abhorrent law, asking “How can he keep me from mine?” An enraged Creon swears to kill whoever buried the corpse, or at least the poor sap of a guard who brought him the bad news. When Antigone readily confesses, he discovers he’s made a slight faux pas as she’s engaged to his son Haeman (Rob Yoho) and now everyone in town questions his authority. “Never compromise on a death sentence” thinks Creon, but he wavers and orders Antigone entombed alive, thus technically avoid the charge of murder. After meeting Creon, you’ll never complain about an elected official again.
With the Annie Russell Theatre is closed for renovation, the action moves outside to the front stairs and plaza. With the columns and balcony of this Spanish Revival theater, the effect of a Greek temple is nearly perfect, except for a few jets buzzing overhead. The show starts awkwardly early, but the timing allows the ambient lighting to fade as the full moon creeps over the building providing the symbolic special effect the ancients would love. Clothed in terra Cotta costumes and makeup, the actors wear the masks of tired old Greeks and brutal young warriors. Smoke pours from the upper balcony, lit by the fires of an ancient augerer’s grove as the actors speak slowly and loudly, emoting as if amplifiers don’t exist. All this moves the audience’s attention from individual performance to consider the force of a pride capable of flipping off Mount Olympus. Only Antigone and Creon’s costumes brighten stage, he dressed as a pre-Roman Jesus in a silver bubble pack vestment, she in a courtesan’s dress and loopy tear away blouse. The spilled blood is only spoken, never slipped in, but the cruelly and desperation are clear-cut. This engrossing and intensely theatrical show recaptures the earliest experience of Hellenic theatre, and its shame it only runs one weekend.
For more information on the Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins College, please visit http://www.rollins.edu/theatre/index.shtml
