Name of the Play: Antigone
Name of the Theatre Group: Motley (Mumbai)
Direction: Satyadev Dubey
Playwright: Jean Anouilh
Adaptation: Satyadev Dubey
Duration: 115 minutes (with interval)
Synopsis
Jean Anouilh’s ‘Antigone’ is an adaptation of Sophocles’ tragic play of the same title. Written in 1942, when Nazi forces occupied France, the story revolves around the conflict between the idealist Antigone and her rigid uncle, Creon, the King. The play was also interpreted to represent the struggle of the French Resistance movement against the forces of the Vichy government during the height of Nazi occupation.
A picture of a totalitarian state and the struggle between the individual and the establishment, it tells the story of Oedipus’s daughter Antigone, who defies her uncle who has issued an edict that the body of Polynices, one of her dead brothers, is to be left to rot.
Antigone attempts to bury Polynices, and is arrested. In the style of true Greek tragedy, this action results in a series of discussions and deaths, as the characters try to deal with life, death, happiness, love, honour and duty.
‘Antigone’ is one in a series of Anouilh’s plays based on Greek mythology. Disillusioned and shocked by the events of World War II, he also wrote Eurydice (1942) and Médée (first performed in 1937), also adapted versions of the original Greek classics.
Considered his masterpiece, ‘Antigone’ cemented Anouilh’s reputation as a dramatist.
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