Artistic Staff

Director's note

This play is based on a legend which told that Eteocles, the son of Oedipus and King of Thebes, had banished his brother, Polyneices, who also wanted to be King. Polyneices gathered an army and led it against Thebes in order to take the throne from his brother. During the battle the two brothers meet on the field and kill one another. This leaves the throne to their uncle, Creon.

The action of the play begins the day after the battle. Creon announces that the body of Eteocles will be buried and celebrated as a hero, while the corpse of Polyneices will never be buried, but left exposed to the sun and scavenging animals.

The conflict of the play between Antigone and Creon is presented in simple terms and is based on the Greek attitudes towards burial. Greeks looked upon this kind of punishment with profound horror. To not allow a body to be buried would be the greatest insult to the spirit of the dead and to his/her family. Sophocles creates and presents a more universal view of this particular situation, until it becomes fundamentally a question whether man-made and tyrannically enforced law should take precedence over what any individual believes in their heart to be divine law. Creon tries to impose his human law on Antogone, who disobeys out of respect and belief for a higher law. The Chorus is the Narrator of and a principal character in the action of the play.

The Chorus informs us of information needed to understand the past, and responds to the action of the present as we the audience would, were we in the life of the play. What a life it is, too!