Jean Anouilh's "Antigone"

Artwork from http://www.deconstructivetheatreproject.org/

This play surprised me.  At first I thought it felt more of the same... we've read this before.  But then Anouilh brought so much character into Antigone.  Instead of making the rash, rebellious choices we see in Sophocles' Antigone, we see Anouilh's Antigone consider what she is leaving behind.  For the first act, Antigone is a thoughtful, noble heroine who we feel for.

 

Creon is introduced as a tyrant, his guards, insufferable.  The hinting that Creon will sacrifice his young page as a visual punishment for covering Polyneices.. pure villainy. But through his discussion with Antigone, we see that he can be kind and fatherly and trapped in his unasked for role as king.

 

And then.. then there was a moment when I thought that the story would change. That after two millennium, Anouilh would alter the end of the story and allow Antigone a future.  That she would no longer be trapped by her actions, her fate, by the ending that Sophocles wrote for her.  I had hope for this character who I have come to care for.

 

But no.  I should know by now that the future does not change for iconic characters.  Anouilh is not Disney, and Antigone chooses her fate just as Werther does.  She chooses to ignore the realities presented for her and to die for her truth.  There is no saving her.. as Creon says "What would you want me to do?  Condemn her to live?" (Anouilh 50).

 

Anouilh took a 2000 year old play and brought it to life for me.  I can't wait to read Brecht's version.

 

Works Cited:

Anouilh, Jean. Antigone. Trans. Barbara Bray. London: Bloomsbury, 2009. Print.