“Antigone”, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Venue: Paradise in the Vault
Duration: 85 minutes
Three-star review ★★★
Tom Shortland in Edinburgh
19 August 2024
A young amateur group’s cinematic production of Anouilh’s adaptation.
Performed at Paradise in The Vault, the venue’s hot, dark, claustrophobic quality and painted brick cellar walls only contribute to the atmosphere of the piece which is achieved in no small part by the haunting lighting design and dismal evocative soundtrack. The visual appearance of the show is memorable: tone and impact on the eye appear to be Philomène Cheynet’s two greatest strengths as a director.
Anouilh’s Antigone, which bears only basic similarities with the version by Sophocles, reworks the play with a view to cultivating a particular psychological, intense, volcanic tone more in line with the sensibilities of modern drama. Eighty years after its original staging in Nazi-occupied France, it is clear that the “modernised” dialogue has aged, with some moments of melodrama and cliché.
Jeremy Sams’s 2,002 translation keeps the language as in touch with modern reality as possible, but is largely faithful. The show’s listing on the Fringe website does not credit a writer or translator, the words “rewriting of an eternal myth” leading me to believe this may have been a new adaptation of Sophocles’s work, devised by the company (Underground Productions) who produce “wild rewritings and new translations.”
Though not at all new, the translation is arguably “wild”. Hegel famously interpreted the centre of the tragedy as being in Antigone’s moral predicament: should she fulfil her duty to her family and the gods and bury her brother? Or fulfil her duty to the state by obeying Creon’s edict (which forbids any such burial)?
In this adaptation’s surprising departure, Antigone is somewhat ambivalent towards family and religion. Creon says he knows she doesn’t believe Polynices is being denied an afterlife by remaining unburied. When asked who she’s doing it for, she tells him, “For nobody. For myself.” Sophocles’s selfless, god-fearing Antigone is replaced by a frankly self-centred, suicidal one. Conflicting passions are replaced with a kind of shameful nihilism.
Clare Robinson dominates the stage as Antigone, with vitality, endurance and force. Her performance is somewhat limited by the small scope for emotional range afforded her: in almost every scene she teeters on the edge of tears in a similar mix of depression, indignance and righteous anger which, although occasionally monotonous, is certainly impressive. Perhaps the emotional storytelling would have benefited from the company approaching certain lines with a touch more incongruity, to break free of this?
Angus Morrison meets the role of Creon with consistent volcanic intensity. The character’s physicality is finely spun, but one gets the sense that the actor is hiding behind his perpetual scowl like a mask, giving him a slightly inhuman quality. The portrayal of Creon veers disappointingly close to that of a raging, egotistical, unsympathetic villain, a somewhat reductive reading of the character, contrary to the spirit of the play which poses the question of whether one should conform or rebel.
A production that paints Antigone as a hero and Creon as a villain answers this question simplistically, rather condescendingly telling the audience what to think, rather than leaving it for them to search for an answer in the drama. In Sophocles and Anouilh, Creon and Antigone are both sympathetic. Creon is an important character to get right, and an easy one to get wrong, but overall Morrison’s portrayal is admirable.
A more subtle but equally notable performance is that of Trudy Kalvynaitė as the Nurse. One of the greatest strengths of Anouilh’s adaptation is in his tender treatment of the exchanges between Antigone and the nurse who raised her, fleshed out with sentimental details and complex emotions (the character does not appear in Sophocles’s original play). Kalvynaitė navigates the complex emotions surrounding their life-long relationship with shades of love, anxiety and resentment, all while demonstrating a great sense of humour and promising natural talent.
Robbie Morris plays Jonas, one of the soldiers who reports Antigone’s attempt to bury Polyneices’s body to Creon. He exploits this scene for laughs, playing to his formidable sense of humour. Particularly enjoyable among the soldiers is Thomas Catton’s portrayal of the Corporal, who delivers a consistently funny and convincing performance.
The costumes, though occasionally ill-fitting, are largely beautiful (remarkably so, considering the typical budget of amateur work by young people). The anachronisms are slightly troubling: the Colonel’s uniform looks like it’s from WW2, another character wears a digital watch, and there are references in the script to bayonets (which have fallen out of mainstream military use since the 1940s). Nevertheless, the costume serves to accentuate Antigone’s vulnerability, Creon’s traditionalism, Ismene’s regal beauty, and the Nurse’s maternal pragmatism.
The most notable thing about Anouilh’s adaptation is that it was written to be staged in occupied France as an act of resistance against the Nazi regime. The questions it asks don’t seem perfectly aligned with the ideas the company wished to explore, but it is still a good amateur production, made with passion by a strikingly talented group of young people.
