Review: Antigone - The Burial At Thebes

Antigone - The Burial at Thebes
a version of a Sophocles' play by Seamus Heaney
Company B

Last night as I watched Chris Kohn's Company B directing debut, I recalled a film I watched some time ago, Vanya on 42nd Street.

The whole premise of the film starts with a group of actors walking around the streets of New York. They chat, buy coffee, and catch up with each other's business. Eventually they walk into an abandoned building and before you even realise, Chekhov's beautiful, beautiful Uncle Vanya has started.

It is one of the most simple and elegant examples I have seen used in film that brings to life the resonance of a classical piece of literature from a reality setting.

In much the same way, Kohn's Antigone begins with much the same intention. Instead, Kohn along with designer Dale Ferguson have created a community hall. Indeed, a community hall so similar to any you could find in any suburb of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide.

You have the small stage, one and a half feet from the ground, the tacky stage curtains, the tea and coffee pots, the sparse arrangement of chairs, the obligatory fire exit doors and of course, the green EXIT sign.

We find a man wandering the space who we later find out is Creon (Boris Radmilovich). He looks out the windows, tests the lights and finally takes a seat in one corner of the space that is no doubt, about to become his kingdom.

The world then comes alive, as homeless looking bodies crawl out from crevices under the stage, through all the doors and we find ourselves in the Community Hall of Thebes.

It certainly creates an awesome anticipation. What will Kohn do with this? How will the tragedy play out? How will Antigone front up to Creon, who has not allowed her to bury her brother? What status will Creon assume in this world? And enticingly, what will the gods of the Community Centre of Thebes be like?

The answer for most of those questions is, unfortunately, not very much.

When I left the theatre, people naturally come up to you and give you a smile and say, "So what did you think?" With this one, I was immediately unsure.

The first problem with this production is that the intent behind Seamus Heaney's translation was totally ignored. In a fascinating Guardian article, Heaney explains the way he began the translation:

"Early in 2003 we were watching a leader, a Creon figure if ever there was one: a law and order bossman trying to boss the nations of the world into uncritical agreement with his edicts in much the same way as Creon tries to boss the Chorus of compliant Thebans into conformity with his. With the White House and the Pentagon in cahoots, determined to bring the rest of us into line over Iraq, the passion and protest of an Antigone were all of a sudden as vital as oxygen masks."

It's a good old battle between good and evil, and as far as Heaney is concerned, that George W Bush chap is Doctor Evil numero uno.

In our Community Centre of Thebes edition, the stakes are totally lost, and you can feel that when actors are trying to wind up those fire and brimstone monologues (cause hang on a minute we are in a suburban Community Centre) that the ground is terribly shaky.

It has been suggested by casting indigenous actor Deborah Mailman as Antigone, local race relations would surface and provide the necessary context.

Indeed, in The Australian, Mailman says that "even though we haven't highlighted any of the facts of reconciliation - or the unreconciliation - that has happened within our country, certainly there is resonance that comes with me being in the role of Antigone."

Maybe the production needed to highlight it more. It certainly seems that Heaney wasn't afraid of highlighting his opposition to the actions of an American president.

The second problem is that the lighting and sound design raises the theatrical stakes to a compelling level that is unmatched by the events happening on stage. The fluorescent lights which add even further to the 'faithful reproduction' of a community hall flash and flicker whenever the tension rises. Thunderous and earthy sounds are even emitted, but when it is not matched, the effects just float off into the distance.

There is one moment, however, when Gillian Jones enters as the soothsayer and messenger through the double doors that finally provides the production with a height in tension and adds a clear and disturbing element of the 'other world' into our community hall.

This type of entrance and mood could have been utilised a lot more, especially in a play that is practically all messenger driven with all the violent action happening away from Creon's sight.

In many ways, there are too many opposing creative forces within this show, and the full breadth of its tragedy dissipates.

I wonder whether Kohn would have almost been better off doing this production within the smaller confines of a real community hall. At least then the context would have been created, like that in Vanya on 42nd Street, and where the intimacy may have lifted the tragic elements into something we could grasp and resonate with.

Until 25 May