The Theban Plays by Sophocles Antigone (1986– ) Online

In a highly competent cast, the most striking performances are John Shrapnel's Creon, Tony Selby's Soldier, John Gielgud's Teiresias, and the 12-man Chorus. Creon is an autocrat, often arrogant, domineering, coarse or brutal, though democratically allowing and responding to gibes and arguments from his subjects. The translation, the staging, and the actor all make Creon more vicious than Sophocles intended, but Shrapnel brings him powerfully to life.

Selby's Soldier is a show-stealer. We are familiar with Shakespeare's skill in using clever, uninhibited commoners to create comic interludes in high tragedy. Greek tragedy is not noted for this, but Sophocles clearly knew how, and the translation is even funnier. A very old John Gielgud splendidly gives the ancient seer, Teiresias, a power of presence sufficient to overbear the autocrat. Gielgud does not shout; he is on stage for only two minutes, but the force of his utterance lingers in the memory. The Chorus look like older peers of the British House of Lords circa 1890. Their lines are spoken, sometimes in unison, sometimes singly in sequence, always with great clarity and variety.

The play begins with an act of civil disobedience by the king's niece, and ends with the misery and suicide of the perpetrator, of her fiance (the king's son), and of his mother (the queen), together with the utter despair of the king. What went wrong?

The first move is Creon's: a decree that, under pain of death, no one may bury Polynices (his nephew and Antigone's brother), who has been killed making war against the city. The stated reason for the decree is that enemies must be treated manifestly worse than loyal citizens. But why go to this extreme? One could easily distinguish between an enemy (Polynices) and a patriot (Eteocles, his brother, killed in the same battle) by simple rites for the former and elaborate ones for the latter. Creon completely ignores the conflict between his decree and the hallowed custom of burial rites.

Antigone, aware of the law and the punishment, plans to bury her brother anyway. This action strikes her as beautiful, partly because, unafraid, she will be doing what she enthusiastically believes to be Right. But partly also because she is entranced with the notion of embracing Polynices forever in the world of death. Her sister, Ismene, thinks the plan extreme, but can only counsel submission. Neither woman considers trying first to persuade Creon to amend the decree which, if successful, would make disobedience and its consequences unnecessary. By disobeying, Antigone will challenge Creon's authority as well as his wisdom, making it harder for him to back down. Especially hard in this case, since his acquiescence would look like partiality for a family member, a sin he has pledged to avoid.

Having disobeyed the edict, Antigone is brought before Creon. She eloquently invokes the "divine, everlasting" laws that her disobedience obeyed, but falters when Creon's questioning (a la Socrates) probes her understanding of justice to enemies and patriots. The questions logically point to the solution mentioned above: burial for both, but simple for the enemy and elaborate for the patriot. But no one offers it: neither Antigone, nor Creon, nor the Chorus.

Ismene is summoned. Grief-stricken at Antigone's prospects, she pleads to share the guilt and the punishment. Turned down by Antigone, she puts to Creon a powerful argument: surely he will not execute his son's betrothed. Her love, compassion, courage, gentleness and poise are beautiful, but the formula that might have saved the day does not occur to her.

Creon's son, Haemon, now enters, desperate to rescue his betrothed. He begins by expressing full deference to his father's judgment and authority, hoping this will make it easier for Creon to consider alternatives. Haemon tells Creon that the city completely disagrees with him: it thinks that Antigone's action merits not death, but the highest honors. The confrontation shows great courage in Haemon, but also much dishonesty. That popular opinion, even if favorable, would be as unanimous, as enthusiastic, or as accessible to him as he claims, is not plausible. The opinions he reports are emphatically his own and manifestly contrary to his father's. The initial assertion of deference was a pretext. Creon is enraged. If, instead, Haemon had asked Creon to explain why the edict was necessary, might this have led to a discussion of its merits, and might that have opened the way to changing the decree?

This was the last chance to prevent catastrophe. Haemon rushes out, warning that Antigone's death will cause another. Antigone, waiting for transfer to the tomb where she will be buried alive, laments her fate, feeling now that her death will be ugly and miserable.

Teiresias enters to declare that the country's altars and hearths are all defiled by birds and dogs satiated with Polynices' unburied body. Creon takes this as balderdash that Teiresias has been bribed to concoct. Whereupon Teiresias predicts Haemon's death. Remembering that the old man's prophecies have never been mistaken, Creon finally changes course. He rushes to bury Polynices and then to free Antigone. But too late: Antigone has hanged herself; a grief-stricken Haemon lunges at his father, then kills himself. Hearing the news, the queen also commits suicide. Creon is left inexpressibly miserable and shamed. The Chorus, having offered no criticism when it might have helped, now daringly condemns the grand words of proud men, who lack wisdom and piety.

Creon does change course, not in time through reason, but too late and through compulsion. Given his character, would better reasoning have persuaded him? Given the other characters, was better reasoning within their repertory? Was it all inevitable? In practical life we usually assume not. Should the assumption in this play be different?

This is an excellent production to use in humanities or literature classes. It gives a sense of what the Ancient Greeks saw in the theatre, while it updates the setting by having the costumes and uniforms suggest a totalitarian state.

Juliette Stevenson, as Antigone, is marvelous, as she portrays a religious martyr, who is just as much a fanatic in her way as King Creon is in his. John Shrapnel, as the autocratic king, shows us a government figure trying to do what is right, but getting caught up in his own hubris until the final tragedies unfold.

The use of the chorus may be off-putting, but the old men making up the chorus have appeared in countless productions of the BBC and their faces are often familiar to Americans. An alternate approach could have been to reduce the chorus to a couple Theban elders, and, while this staging might have been more comfortable for some viewers, overall we would have lost the experience of seeing a chorus function.

This is a modern translation of Sophocles' finest play, which pits the power of the state against traditional values and common decency. Avoiding the modern idea of the individual vs. the state, the play keeps true to the classical heritage by placing this squarely in a classical Greek context.

The costuming attempts to be timeless, giving a sense of 20th century dictatorship and "cult of the ruler" but with various figures in outfits that appear to be almost Victorian. All in all, after a few minutes the costuming "disappears" and the focus becomes the intense interaction between the actors.

Antigone and Creon are excellently played and deliver the powerful speeches well, as do the other main figures. The comic relief of the soldier who discovers Antigone's "crime" is nicely done as well. The chorus, a necessity in Greek plays, is again well done. Although not a staple in modern drama, the chorus does help to keep the ancient Greek tone.

All in all, this is a fine production on all accounts, the best of a set of three productions of the ancient Theban Plays.

The movie rendition of Antigone, directed by Don Taylor was a poor performed take of the original play. It follows the same narrative as the play, but with some small director changes. The movie is still able to spread both Sophicle's thoughts of what is morally right versus legally right while still having a new modern feel. The movie; however, did follow Sophicle's original text, but it simply portrayed Sophicle's play as it was. There was little effort that appeared to be made to keep the viewers interesting in the well sculpted piece. For the fact that it was hard to keep the attention of viewers with the dull take on the emotions of the characters. The actors tried to show too much emotion, causing the dialogue to loss much of its effect on the audience. The setting throughout the visual was bland as there were no major scene changes. The viewers are stuck with seeing the same grey background for the entirety of the nearly two hour movie which excludes many children from being interested in watching it as they it would quickly loss their attention, leaving only some adults to have the understanding to still be able to watch it. In conclusion, this rendition of the original play is good as an accurate depiction of the piece, but lacks in keeping audience attention with no scenery changes and no change in emotions throughout the piece.

This movie is a rendition of Antigone, in which is directed by Don Taylor. I believe it was a bad performance of the original play. The director made changes to the play in which causes the movie to be boring and loses the attention of the audience. I feel as if they aren't trying to gain attention from viewers in this play. The scene never changes, therefore; you are stuck watching the same plain screen the whole movie. The movie does however, follow the plot of the play just not the details. The characters dialogue wasn't the best just because they were over dramatic with their emotions compared to the reading. The attended audience is maybe people who watch older movies. I would definitely not recommend this movie to anyone.

I saw the movie in my honors english class, and I thought that it was a great movie. My favorite actor in the movie is the knight from Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. He was one of the chorus members. That guy was the coolest. The next best thing was the other chorus member with the hoarse voice and red hair who pronounces "land" and "lyiand" That was hilarious. All in all, it was a good plot and the music sequences was great. The actor playing Creon was very beleivable, forceful, and showed great antipathy to the surrounding actors. He was the scariest ruler in all the llyyiiiannnddd!

This movie was ok and the actors were good...but the wonderful scenery of ONE room was a little boring(though if they're trying to be realistic to Greek Drama, I understand). Most of the costumes didn't quite fit the time period. Creon looked like Star Trek, Ismene like the Renaissance, Creon's son like Star Wars. But oh well, all in all it's an ok movie though the chorus did get annoying at times.

Saw this in a college literature class and just saw it for the second time in about ten years. Excellent film,good story and outstanding work on the part of the chorus. Look for the actor who played the Grail guardian in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,without the head covering and makeup,of course. His voice should give him away. Always nice to see a classic story adapted to modern film. The chorus especially is what makes this so good.

The play was pretty good to watch. However, having so many people in the chorus was very annoying. So many voices suddenly pipe in and take away from all the drama of the story, and make it just look foolish. If this chorus wasn't there, I feel the film would have been very good. Regardless of the spartan set they used.