Picture Research

Top: I included this picture for the casting option of having a very tall Creon and a small Antigone, this contrast in body types again sets up that display of overbearing power and young girls struggle to fight for what she knows is right.

Bottom: This picture again sets up that power feel with the use of different body types. I have usually seen Creon played by an older man, but I like the height contrast better than the age contrast. Also the lighting is somewhat I would imagine it to look like with Antigone in bright light and Creon in dark shadowy clothes to break up the scenes where it is just him and her.

Credit:      Top: West Sound Academy Production Nov. 2004     Bottom: Google Images no further information.

Brief Synopsis

Brief bit about the show:


From Oxford Reference Online.


Antigone was the daughter of King Oedipus of Thebes and his mother-wife Jocaste. When her father had blinded himself and been exiled from Thebes after being revealed as the husband of his mother, the killer of his father, and the half brother of his children, Antigone accompanied her unfortunate father to Colonus, where he died. Sophoclestells of these events in his plays Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone is best known, however, for her deeds described in Sophocles's play Antigone.

After her father's death, Antigone returned to Thebes to find her two brothers Eteocles and Polynices fighting over the throne. When the brothers had succeeded in killing each other,Creon, who had taken over the crown and had supported Eteocles, refused to allow Polynices a proper burial. For Antigone this was sacrilege, and unaided by her much more passive sister Ismene, she defied the king and buried her brother. In the interest of public order, Creon felt obligated to punish his unrepentant niece and ordered her confined to a subterranean place, where she committed suicide. What Creon did not realize was that his son Haemon loved Antigone sufficiently to go to his own death at her side. (ORO, 5th)

Third Dramaturgy Entry

   With the article “Another Antigone”, we are introduced to a new form of the character Antigone. The author Saxonhouse looks at Euripides  character Antigone in a way we are not used to viewing her. Euripides' alternative to the familiar Sophocles' Antigone, forces us to view her in an unsettling light.  In “Phoenician Women”, Antigone is forced into, “…troubling epistemological disruptions that allow Antigone to become a political actor…” (Saxonhouse, 475). Which is were we see her start off in Sophocles' "Antigone".  Euripides does also give us some insight into the political state of Thebes after Oedipus’ discovers his incestual relationship with his mom.

   This fresh and somewhat unsettling view of Antigone will allow the production team to approach the show with a better understanding of where she is coming from, which might allow us to portray new twist on the ancient play. 

Citation:

Saxonhouse, Arlene W. "Another Antigone: The Emergence of the Female Political Actor in Euripides' "Phoenician Women"" JSTOR: Political Theory 33.4 (2005): 472-94. Print.

Everyday Life of Ancient Greece by C.E. Robinson

According to the Chapter in Presnell that discusses monographs, it states that a monograph is a book on a specific subject or that discusses a specific date in time.  I found a book, Everyday Life in Ancient Greece, by C.E. Robinson a professor at Winchester College. It was first published in 1933 and so I was a bit apprehensive to use it as a major reference but I am really only using it for the dates which it has in it and I was able to double check the dates with other sources and found the to be factual. 
Link to online site where you can skim through the fulltext version of the book, http://www.questia.com/read/59501764?title=Everyday%20Life%20in%20Ancient%20Greece%20(1933)


I am including this monograph because the events and dates represented within it helped the production team to develop some background on what was happening in ancient Greece while Sophocles was writing "Antigone." It turns out that just twelve years prior to Sophocles writing "Antigone" Greece had gone through a major shift in government styles from their Delian Confederacy into the Athenian Empire. These types of changes in politics undoubtedly influenced the culture of ancient Greece and the way many of them viewed power and government as a whole. It will help us to develop a complete analysis of why things are being portrayed in the play and how to shape the theme of the show to get that point across to our audience or at least guide them in beginning to think about such matters.


Citation:
Robinson, C. E. Everyday Life in Ancient Greece. London: Oxford UP, 1933. Print.

"Antigone" by Sophocles translated by R.C. Jebb.

My theatre company has decided to do a production of Antigone by Sophocles translated by R.C. Jebb in 1893. Link to the online play can be found here, http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/antigone.html.
 There are other translations of the play, but R.C. Jebb's version seems to have kept with the more original way in which Antigone was presented back around 442 B.C.E. The struggles and complications that Antigone must endure throughout the play continue to represent many of the struggles other women have had to go through such as with women suffrage. In a more general sense "Antigone," shows how power can be very corrupt and at many times difficult to stand up to and over through. According to Oxford Reference   Online the name Antigone from origin means born against or in a way contrary to.


Citation:
(ORO, names and places Antigone)

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