1 Sophocles' Antigone Introduction, translation, and notes by ...

Just before the entrance of Teiresias, the ensemble make wind sounds. The chorus
look nervous seeing this holy man approach.
At the end the dead bodies are symbolically represented by an article of clothing.
Haemon throws his cloak at his father. Eurydice lays her cape down at Creon’s feet.
Finally, Antigone puts her wreath next to the two “bodies.” The four actors that began
reciting the names at the beginning start again. They fade away and Ismene says quietly,
“Antigone?” three times. The lights go up.
SUGGESTED PROGRAM NOTES
Ancient Athens in the fifth century before Christ produced the first written dramas in the
western world. Sophocles was one of the three great playwrights who lived then and
whose work we have. He wrote the Oedipus Rex, which twenty-five centuries later led
Freud to his theory of the Oedipus complex. Sophocles wrote about 123 plays, of which
only seven survive to this day all of which are recognized as masterpieces. Sophocles’
heroes struggle to right the wrongs they perceive in the world about them.
Antigone is the first, and remains, the greatest play in western literature about the
consequences of individual conscience defying civil authority. Antigone is the favorite of
many. In her clash with King Creon, as she defends the rights of the family, Antigone
invokes “the unwritten law of the gods,” whereas Creon rests his case on defending the
safety and security of the state against anarchy.
These issues about human rights have everlasting relevance. This play is performed
whenever a country is in trouble: it is sometimes the only way people can fight back
against abusive authority. This play resonates with timeless immediacy in situations of
conflict. Plays have often been used in repressive conditions to reveal the truth when the
mass media like newspapers, radio or television have been silenced by censorship.
Anouilh wrote an Antigone for fascist Paris in 1944; in 1948 Brecht used Antigone as a
model for his Mother Courage, an archetype of the rebellious woman suitable for any age;
Athol Fugard’s The Island, performed in 1973, shows black prisoners incarcerated on
Robben Island in South Africa performing this play to keep their sanity in the midst of the
insanity of Apartheid, an unjust system of government which deprived an entire segment
of the population of their human rights. In 1984, Tom Paulin shows us an Antigone (The
Riot Act) from the North of Ireland, and she is a freedom fighter, whereas Creon’s words
sound like Ian Paisley’s. In 1986, Brendan Kennelly also sees the Irish relevance in his
Antigone, with a deadly net of words strangling substantive action.
But most of all, this play is a human drama and a tragedy that shows two passionate
people who go hell-bent to destroy themselves and others. The price of supporting their
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