BWW Blog: Alyssa Sileo - The Business of the Living: GCIT's ANTIGONE

All the kids are saying it these days...and I join with them in the name of theatre. GCIT's Senior Drama Class Production of Don Taylor's translation of Sophocles's Antigone has got me shook.

Blend these ingredients together:
1) Seeing your dear friends onstage as they navigate through an intense production (this being their last at this beloved school)
2) Observing some of the most intelligent directing you'll ever encounter
3) Meeting a plot structure of literary genius that unnerves a writer

And you've got my appalled and astounded state with a couple of sobs.

The cursed luck of Oedipus, the accidental husband of his mother, reveals itself in his four children, when two sons kill each other on opposite sides of a civil war. Their uncle Creon, assuming power of Thebes, declares that no treachery be tolerated, but is challenged by his niece who seeks to give her renegade brother a proper burial. Governmental themes pulsate in Antigone, as the division between policy and probity is dimmed and desecrated. Talk about an epic level boost-this is a story compelling enough in Period, but brilliant director Katie Knoblock sets the play in a modern-day government headquarter's bunker. As an aesthetic-devotee and dramatic-writing-fanatic, I was outright thrilled by the justice done to this narrative of morality, loyalty, and possibility.

Greek theatre is extremely sentient-many times over, the text contemplates itself in choral odes-and Knoblock's outstanding direction highlights what can be considered these introspective gems of theatrical structure. As for the choral text, Knoblock divides up this aspect of Greek Theatre (that often reads as just pretty) and doles out verses to individuals who portray governmental cabinet figures. The chorus of Senators does not fall into the trap of merely passing comments and synthesizing the audience's response, but rather, this band disturbs the peace and cracks the stony resolve of King Creon. True to the roots of Greek theatre, Miss Knoblock directs this piece like a visual song, with meaningful shifts in pace. The poetry of life's own climaxes and disastrous denouements, the illusion of secrets, and the necessity of liability ring in this show's melody. Knoblock also understands at what capacity an audience can tolerate a narrative, especially something as stressful as Antigone. Over the course of the show, we're acclimated to this powder keg. By the time the Chorus is desperate in prayer, we've been taught that this story is a miserable one-but that doesn't make our receival of this brutal climax any less taxing.

Indeed, the cast gives a performance equally gripping for each kind of audience member-but an analytical artist can especially revel in the genius. The Senators allow their impulses to rule, and lean on each other for this onerous course-because what else can you do in a bunker? As a classmate of theirs, I could tell my friends use bits of their own personality to color these figures. What results is striking stage pictures and tellable journeys of these character built from the ground up (there are no stage directions in this text!). These artists permit themselves to become offended, saddened (and yes, "shook") as each distress penetrated the bunker.

What I found most chilling in this production were the motifs of accountability and power. A person can bend time with an iron will, but only for so long. In Sophocles's classic we see how dangerous a man could be-capable of the things the gods wouldn't think to do. Creon's unraveling, superbly demonstrated in Taylor's translation, is, in my opinion, the most incredible villain's journey found in classical theatre. His descent into a mad confidence and crumbling into "nothing" is so clearly demonstrated in verse that shift from swaths of sermons to mere flutters. The audience silently pleads for his surrender to the good Thebans and Senators. Another aspect of 2017's Antigone that I adored was the light-bulb moment that came from the partially coincidental and partially strategic casting of all women chorus members-an audience so distinctly sees Thebes's turn from Creon, as he flings terribly sexist remarks so unapologetically.

I want to extend my sincerest thank you's to this cast because I needed that acting class and challenge for analysis. I'm privileged to have (three-times) seen Antigone's ensemble of artists (each meant to be onstage forever), but even more grateful to work with them daily. I love you, 2017.

And continuing the modernization trend, here is an Antigone playlist! https://open.spotify.com/user/lyssimarieee/playlist/7gmLZ0rVhGBDi9eaoxQ7co

(Featured in the cover picture, onscreen: Creon and Alana Kopelove as Chief of Staff. Not onscreen: Kelly Bagby as Press Secretary, Kearin Coonan as Press Secretary Assistant, Sarah Wilson as Military Intelligence 2, Skyler Federer as Military Intelligence 1.)

Need more New Jersey Theatre News in your life? Sign up for all the news on the Winter season, discounts & more...