A sense of tragedy looms on the stage even before the actors arrive. It’s a near bare stage, the dominant colour is black: white masks stare out from the frame into the audience. A lively chorus arrives – song, dance and a hearty disposition -- but eeriness that hangs in the air refuses to vacate even in those moments of laughter. The strong black and white suggestions of the set design is more an indicator of the play’s point of departure from Sophocles’s original, rather than being a signboard of conformism.
When Jean Anouilh wrote Antigone , he was retranslating Sophocles’ work as a response to contemporary turbulences in France. Theatre Samurai’s production of Antigone based on Anouilh’s work, directed by Iqbal, is an attempt to take forward the questions that Anouilh raises in his play. To say the least, it interrogates and makes the idea of truth especially complex. The two hour long production is challenging – Iqbal densely weaves content with a style so unique to him, and if you miss one, you are likely to miss the other too.
As the name itself suggests, the protagonist of the play is Antigone. But as the play unfolds it is clear that Creon, the king of Thebes is also the centre of the discourse. The play brings to conflict the dilemmas of Creon as opposed to Antigone’s resolve, constantly asking us questions on, who we are and what we become. Iqbal achieves this with a fine technique: “I’m Shruti, from Tiptur”, “I am Prathibha and I play Antigone”, “I am Harish, a theatre designer, playing Haemon…”, so on and so forth. The actors barely begin to introduce themselves, within no time, they seamlessly merge into the play, and dissolve into the roles they portray. This phenomenon – of the actors negotiating between their real selves and their theatrical selves – happens more than once, taking us right back to the question that is at the heart of the Anouilh’s play, who are we? What is a true self, does it exist? Or are we constantly determined by the roles we play? Iqbal powerfully sets the tone for these questions, at the very beginning.
Antigone, played brilliantly by Prathibha, is troubled by the State apparatus and the manner in which it privileges politics over humanity. While she, like the rest of them, can insulate herself from the political conditions, happily marry Haemon, and settle down to a life of royalty -- but takes the difficult route. Both her brothers are dead: the State unleashes its power games and gives a burial to Eteocles who it considers friend, and allows the body of Polynices, who it sees as enemy, to rot. Distressed and agitated by the ways of her uncle, Antigone walks through the memories of childhood, the love that she shared with her brothers, the bond they had with Creon… she is unable to come to terms with the fact that as head of the State, Creon has heartlessly destroyed the old order.
But is Creon (intense performance by Prathjin) really merciless? He orders the guards who have arrested Antigone to open her cuffs and leave the room. He coaxes her to stop her attempts to give Polynices a burial, cajoles her to return to her room, reminds that he bought her the very first doll and she is a child too dear to him, he begs her to settle down with Haemon and give up her anti State activities, ‘I don’t want you to die’ he implores… but Antigone, in her realm of truth, doesn’t understand Creon’s language of logic. In the quest for humanity, Antigone has fearlessly accepted that death is her fate, and is willing to forego every pleasure of her life to preserve the ethics and cultural order to which she belongs.
Iqbal’s portrayal of Creon is stunning: he goes through intense inner turmoil. He is a shallow symbol of authority who has no spiritual depth: he finds himself diminishing before Antigone’s ethical power. Her intuitive understanding of truth stands unflinched before Creon’s logical explanations. Creon’s inner turbulence fails to find a spoken language for, he wants to continue to play the King. Iqbal, however, in rendering a grotesque body language to him creates a second register who is perhaps moving towards self doubt. The complex nature of truth, and a lone voice upholding it, is itself grotesque. But in the play, both truth and the force that suppresses it are envisioned as grotesque: their journeys are solitary.
Antigone (Prathibha could weave in multiple emotions of childhood, memory, love, humanity, indignation so competently) however, in her freedom to be hostile and rebellious to the State, has more power, whereas Creon is trapped in his own choices: he even loses his last chance to reconnect with humanity.
Iqbal’s production throws many pertinent questions: the existence that you create for yourself is on the basis of the choices you make. In this contemporary world, ridden with desire and temptation, every human being gets an opportunity to reconnect with his consciousness. But if that chance is overstepped, Creons of this world are no different from the rotting corpses of Polyniceses. Antigone is adamant in her pursuit of truth, yet, she leaps into the sky.
