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Sophocles” Antigone:
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SOPHOCLES’ ANT/GONE:
AN EXPLORATION OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY VERSIONS

By

Gerald R. Spaulding Jr.

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Theatre

2007

ABSTRACT

SOPHOCLES’ ANT/GONE:
AN EXPLORATION OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY VERSIONS

By

Gerald R. Spaulding Jr.
Six versions of Antigone are studied to demonstrate how recent playwrights have
used Sophocles’ rendition of the ancient Greek myth as a vehicle to express their
own congruent but dissimilar ideas. The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney
and Antigone by Jean Cocteau re-tell Sophocles’ play. The two versions of
Antigone, one by Jean Anouilh and another by Bertolt Brecht, uniquely adapt
Sophocles’ play while still following the framework of his dramatic action. Athol
Fugard’s The Island and AR. Gumey’s Another Antigone use Sophocles’

Antigone as inspiration from which they create their own unique stories.

To Francisco.

Dionysus cheers for you, my friend.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks to the entire faculty and staff of the Michigan State
University Department of Theatre. Despite the difficulties that my unique
circumstances as an outreach student posed, they managed to work through
them effectively and professionally. Similar professionalism was exhibited by my
superintendent, Dr. Tom Smith, and the Board of Education for the Escanaba
Area School District when they granted my leave of absence for the 2006-07
school year, and for that I am grateful. To the members of my guidance
committee, Professors Sherrie Barr, Kirk Domer, and Frank Rutledge for...well,
for their guidance I suppose, and to Dr. Danielle DeVoss for her citation
assistance with my “feetsnote” and for inadvertently validating my personal brand
of insanity with a wholly unique version of her own. Jalain Onsgard: you and me,
baby—we did it in spite of the odds and the procrastinating emails back and
forth. But mostly, I thank my mother, of course, whom I love dearly (but not in a
tragic Greek sort of way), and my father, who now drinks with Odysseus in the
Elysian Fields, and who’s always been my inspiration and my idol; his was the

stuff of Homeric myth.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FORWARD .................................................................................................................................. 1

CHAPTER I

THE ANTIGONE MYTH:

AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW ............................................................................ 3

CHAPTER II

EXTOLLING THE VIRTUES:

UPDATED VERSIONS OF SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE .............................................. 11
The Burial at Thebes ................................................................................................. 19
Antigone (Cocteau) .................................................................................................... 21

CHAPTER III

EXTENDING THE MYTH:

UNIQUE ADAPTATIONS OF SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE .......................................... 24
Antigone (Anouilh) ...................................................................................................... 24
Antigone (Brecht) ........................................................................................................ 30

CHAPTER IV

EXTRACTING THE STORY:

DRAWING INSPIRATIONFROM SOPHOCLES’ ANTIGONE .................................. 36
The Island ..................................................................................................................... 36
Another Antigone ........................................................................................................ 43

CHAPTER V

THE ANTIGONE MYTH:

A CONCLUSION AND THOUGHTS FOR FURTHER STUDY .................................. 50
Suggestions for Further Study ................................................................................ 51

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 54

Forward

The chronicle of Antigone as represented in the drama, Antigone by
Sophocles, has been an appealing story that dramatists have continued to use
as a vehicle to express their own ideas. When studying a narrative as ancient
and as prevalent as Antigone, it is important to define the source material from
which it is drawn. In the case of Antigone, that source material takes on unusual
definitions. For Sophocles, all indications are that his drama was based off a
popular Greek myth, yet in the case of recent versions, the source of the story
shifts from the myth to the rendition in Sophocles’ play.

Gilbert Highet defines myths as serving one of three purposes. They
either re-tell historical fact, symbolize permanent human truths, or explain
recurring natural processes (520). The myth that Sophocles used as a basis for
his drama clearly had little to do with explaining recurring natural processes.
According to Highet’s definition, then, Antigone was either a historical figure, or a
symbol for universal human truths, and mythical by this definition.

The source for recent versions of Antigone are not the ancient Greek myth
but the drama of Sophocles. Connections to the myth of Antigone come
indirectly through Sophocles’ Antigone. These dramas are based upon the story,
the characters, the themes, etc. of Sophocles’ Antigone, which in turn used the

myth of Antigone as the source for his story, characters, themes, etc.

This study compares six recent examples of this icon in relation to
Sophocles’ original version of the Antigone myth. In doing so, the plays have
been broken into three distinct categories.

In the first category are The Burial at Thebes by the Irish, Nobel Laureate,
Seamus Heaney, and Carl Wildman’s translation of Jean Cocteau’s Antigone.
Together, these two plays represent how playwrights have re-told Sophocles’
Antigone. Though unique in style, they closely mirror Sophocles in plot and
theme.

The second category of plays take Sophocles’ Antigone and extend the
story’s plot and themes to create a renewed relevance for their audiences. The
plays included in this category are Antigone, written in 1946 by Jean Anouilh and
translated by Barbara Bray, and Bertolt Brecht’s 1948 Antigone, which he
adapted from Friedrich Holderlin’s 1804 German translation, and which was
subsequently translated into English by Judith Malina in 1966.

The final grouping of plays consists of The Island, written and first
produced in 1973 by South African playwright Athol Fugard, and AR. Gumey’s
Another Antigone. These two plays draw inspiration from Sophocles’ Antigone to

develop their own, unique storylines.

The Antigone Myth:
An Introduction and Overview

Gilbert Highet thought that “tragedy must rise above the realities of every
day, upon the wings of imagination and emotion” (538). Sophocles’ Antigone
exemplifies this. In doing so Sophocles managed to achieve what no poet or
playwright had been able to accomplish before him: he took a myth of
questionable origin and which had been the product of a dubiously documented
oral tradition for centuries and created a definitive record of it from which all
subsequent versions have been drawn.

Myths have always been an indomitable part of the human psyche. Carl
Jung believed that myths were “patterns in which the soul of every man
develops, because of the humanity he shares with every other man” (Jung, qtd.
in Highet 524). Drawing from universal, immortal truths myths capture on a
primal level those elements which have an irresistible appeal. This is evidenced
by the mythical stories, often of similar design, that exist in diverse cultures
around the world to this day.

Some of the world’s greatest artists have continually drawn from myth for
source material. These include Homer’s Odyssey, Rembrandt’s “Danae,”
Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and of course the uncredited “Venus di Milo.” Theatre,
however, may be the most indebted to, and dependent upon, myths. Virtually

born from myth, the Western theatre’s oldest extant plays are dominated by tales

of gods, witches, soothsayers, and other fantastic individuals. Even those stories
with historical origin such as the Trojan War became mythic in nature due to the
natural embellishment that their oral tradition laid upon them through time.

This evolution from the oral tradition into a place of distinction is
particularly true of Sophocles’ Antigone. Outwardly a political statement, with
religious themes that are culturally unique to its day, its themes remain
engrossing. In his book, The Classical Tradition, Greek and Roman Influences
on Western Literature, Gilbert Highet asserts that this universality which
Sophocles has woven into his play on the conceptual level is what accounts for
the success of myths in general. Highet writes that “myths deal with the greatest
of all problems, the problems which do not change, because men and women do
not change” (540). Antigone exemplifies this idea, and perhaps it is for this
reason that it has tenaciously held its place in the theatrical canon for over two-
thousand years.

The story, as presented by Sophocles, tells of Oedipus’ daughter,
Antigone. It opens at the conclusion of a war in which her two brothers,
Polyneices and Eteocles, had fought for the crown of Thebes. Now, both
brothers having perished at each other’s hand in single combat, it is their uncle,
Creon, who has become king. Creon proclaims that while Eteocles, being the
rightful sovereign and defender of Thebes, shall be accorded all the rites of an
honorable burial, Polyneices, because of his ignominious attempt to usurp
control, shall be left unburied so that the dogs and vultures can pick at his

corpse. As part of this edict, Creon also avows that any citizen attempting to

bury Polyneices shall be stoned to death. Believing it her familial duty to bury
Polyneices and thereby save his soul from an eternity of unrest, Antigone openly
and unabashedly defies Creon’s order, and the ensuing clash of wills between
them results in the deaths of Antigone, as well as Creon’s wife and son, Eurydice
and Haemon.

Since its first production at the Festival of Dionysus in 441 BC.
(Arrowsmith 3)‘, Antigone has been a fixture in the Western theatre. Euripides
re-worked the tragedy later that same century and the Roman poet, Seneca,
wrote his own version in the first century AD. Through the centuries there have
been numerous versions drawn from Sophocles’ play, including an adaptation by
Thomas More in 1631 and a pro-Catholic novel entitled The New Antigone,
written by a Jesuit priest, William Francis Barry, in 1887.

In some adaptations the story remains fundamentally the same as
Sophocles’ play, while in others playwrights have taken liberties by adding their
own unique perspective to the original text. Antigone has seen thirteen different
translations alone, not to mention its innumerable adaptations and allusions to it
throughout literature. Performed around the world almost continuously since
1863, it has been distinguished as being the most widely-covered of all
Sophocles’ plays2 (Remediaki). Yet, in spite of this remarkable promulgation,
there remains controversy as to whether the Antigone myth is historical in origin,

or whether Sophocles merely invented it.

 

‘ Other scholars place it at 443 BC.
2 There are no less than thirteen translations alone.

In order to trace the veracity of Antigone’s existence prior to the fifth
century BC, one must also examine evidence of her lineage. In Mythology
Edith Hamilton devotes an entire chapter to the Royal House of Thebes, to which
Antigone belongs. Antigone was one of the four children of Oedipus and
Jocasta, and Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Laius’ father,
Labdacus, belongs to the Royal House of Thebes which traces further back to
Cadmus who, according to Greek myth, founded Thebes at Apollo’s behest; but
for the purpose of this study its only use is to establish a blood line, and so in
discussing the genealogy one needs only to go as far back as her father, where
the bulk of the information lies.

The story of Oedipus is as old as any in Greek legend. As the subject of
the Oedipodia, his adventures were chronicled in great detail by the Cyclic poet
Cinaethon in 765 BC. (Smith 1:752), and an even earlier allusion to him is made
in the Odyssey when Homer tells of Odysseus’ encounter with Jocasta on his
journey through the underworld. The Iliad and Odyssey are, of course, amongst
the earliest known works of ancient Greece, and although the various dates
attributed to Homer place him as having lived anywhere from 1184-684 B.C. (ibid
2:500), it is widely accepted that epic poetry in the style of Homer was perfected
between the years of 950-900 BC. (Seyffert 301 ). This places the first reference
to the story of Oedipus roughly five-hundred years before Sophocles.

The other story which bears direct import for Antigone is that of her
brothers, Polyneices and Eteocles, and their war for Thebes. This is the subject

of Aeschylus’ play Seven Against Thebes, dated 467 8.0., and though some

scholars assert that prior to Aeschylus no mention of this battle exists, Michael
Jameson, in his article “Mythology of Ancient Greece,” says that the story of the
two brothers is an old one that may have been the subject of heroic poems
dating back to the time of Hesiod, who, himself, considered the war for Thebes
second in importance amongst the wars of the Heroic Age only to that of the
Trojan War (Myth...Ancient World 243).

The House of Labdacus has its roots in an oral tradition dating back,
seemingly, to before the time of Homer, but when oral tradition is used as a basis
for history, it leads to “patterns of folk tale.” So while there may well have been
the actual historical personages of Oedipus, Antigone, and her brothers, the
stories that were passed down through generations were “likely to have had their
origin in the themes of folk tales” (Jameson 237). As a result, by the time they
reached Sophocles the subjects of his Theban plays may have already
developed the hyperbolic qualities that frequently cause the melting of history
into myth.

In the case of Antigone, the history that passed down to Sophocles
becomes especially impenetrable due to the inconsistencies in the stories that
were available to him. In regards to Oedipus, for example, it is told by some that
upon the death of Jocasta he was cast out of Thebes and, after years of
wandering with Antigone, died peacefully in a sacred grove of the Furies just
outside of Athens. Similarly, other versions tell of him traveling to Colonus where
Antigone cared for him until Apollo granted him a peaceful death (Arrowsmith

97). Conversely, it is separately recorded by Oskar Seyffert and William Smith

respectively that Oedipus was “...deposed from his throne and imprisoned at
Thebes by his sons to conceal his shame from men’s eyes” (425), and
“...tormented by the Erinnyes [Furies] of his mother, [where he] continued to reign
at Thebes after her death; he fell in battle, and was honoured at Thebes with
funeral solemnities” (3:15). In a separate entry Smith, citing Apollodorus, the
grammarian from the second century BC, states that Haemon had died before
Antigone returned from Colonus (1:186), a story that bears obvious and inherent
flaws if one is to believe that Oedipus, and therefore Antigone, never left Thebes
at all.

Additional variations regarding Antigone include the common belief that
after burying Polyneices she was sealed in a cave beyond the city proper where
both she and her betrothed Haemon committed suicide. This is the story
Sophocles tells, as does Bulfinch in his The Age of Fable. Other sources state
that Antigone, with the assistance of Polyneices’ widow, Argeia, bumed his body
upon the funeral pyre of Eteocles. Aftenlvards, when Creon seized her he gave
her to Haemon to be executed, but instead of following his father’s orders
Haemon hid Antigone in a remote shepherd’s hut where they were later wedded
and had a child in secret. It was only years later, when their grown son was
recognized from a familial birthmark, that the two were discovered, at which point
Haemon killed both himself and Antigone in order to escape his father’s wrath
(Seyffert 35-36).

Due to these various versions, it can be argued that the entire story of

Antigone was fabricated by Sophocles. Lending credence to this claim is the fact

that Antigone was written and first produced at a time when Athenians, in the
midst of a socio-political shift toward democratic ideals, would have been
especially outraged at Creon’s autocratic dictum to have Antigone put to death.
Since at that time the political concept of homonoia, where laws are “ideally the
results of a consensual or contractual agreement made by all the citizens of a
state” was being developed (Hall xviii), it would have only been logical for a
playwright of Sophocles’ political astuteness to create a story that has its basis in
ancient Greek myth that “renders the disastrous outcome of [Creon’s]
reign...inevitable” (ibid).

Other sources assiduously stand by the claim that while Sophocles may
have taken liberties with the Antigone story as it had come down to him from the
Homeric Age, the myth itself, as traced back to Cadmus, is rooted in history.
One such source is the eighteenth century French historian, Antoine Banier,
whose four volume work, The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explained
from History, cites Homer and the Lacedaemonian geographer, Pausanias,
among others, to defend his assertions. Banier writes that upon the death of
Jocasta Oedipus married Euriginea, the daughter of Periphas, and it was with her
that he had the four children. For his part, Pausanias cites the Oedipodia and a
picture drawn by Onatas which depicts a grief-stricken Euriginea at the moment
her two sons were to engage in combat (184). So while Banier, through his
sources, may refute the birth parents of Antigone he nonetheless affirms her
birth, thereby serving as a counterpoint to those who deem that Antigone is

merely a Sophoclean contrivance.

Whether Sophocles completely manufactured his Antigone, thereby
extending the Oedipal myth, or whether he fashioned it from a story that was
well-known in its own right, he produced a deeply socio-political play at a time
when Athens was transitioning “between a sacred society and a society built by
man” (Camus, qtd. in Hall xxv). In realizing these conditions, then actualizing
them through his drama, he managed to balance the subject of myth in a way
that Jameson says is comparable to a historian who believes in the nature of his
subject, yet deems it necessary to embellish or re-interpret certain details in
order to create sense, relevance, and understanding to an otherwise amorphous

past (234).

10

Extolling the Virtues:
Updated Versions of Sophocles’ Antigone

Many of the updated versions of Antigone maintain the form and content
of Sophocles’ original text. In writing for their own time and their own distinct
audience, however, playwrights inevitably bring their own point of view to their
scripts. Of the recent versions of Antigone that have followed this pattern, two
have been chosen for this study. The Burial at Thebes, written by Nobel
Laureate Seamus Heaney, was first produced in 2004 at the Abbey Theatre in
Dublin. Jean Cocteau’s Antigone was first produced at the Atelier Theatre of
Paris in 1922 and later revived in 1927.

Though vastly different stylistically from each other, each play ultimately
bears the same form and content. Structurally, each play closely mimics the
basic dramatic action of Sophocles’ play. Shown below is an outline of the story

as dramatized by Sophocles, Heaney, and Cocteau:

PROLOGUE

- Characters: Antigone/lsmene.

- Action: The prologue provides information on events that
transpired prior to the dramatic action of the play, but which bear
significant importance upon that action and its outcome. In this
dialogue it is learned how Thebes has survived its war against the

Argive army, but how in the process, the brothers to Antigone and

11

lsmene were both killed. Eteocles, being the defender of Thebes,
was given an honorable burial by their uncle, Creon, who is now the
king. However, Creon has decreed that Polyneices, the aggressor,
shall not receive the proper burial rites. Antigone informs lsmene
that despite the penalty of death, she intends to bury their brother.
lsmene, more timid and fearful than her sister, refuses to help

Antigone in this, and is then chided severely.

EPISODE ONE

- Characters: Creon/Guard.

- Action: Creon delivers a speech announcing that as king
his first loyalty is to Thebes, and it is for this reason and with the
citizens in mind that he has forbidden the burial of Polyneices,
whom he considers a traitor. The chorus, representative of Theban
citizens, sides with him. At this point, a guard who had been
assigned to watch over the body reports how somebody has
managed to sprinkle dirt atop the body. The nervous guard is told
by Creon that unless he finds out who is responsible he will end up

paying the consequence of death.

EPISODE TWO

0 Characters: Antigone/Creon/Guard.
Antigone/Creon/lsmene.

- Action: The Guard from the previous episode re-enters,

this time with Antigone. When Creon enters, the Guard explains to

12

him how they caught Antigone in the act of sprinkling dirt over the
corpse. Creon dismisses the Guard. In the dialogue that follows,
Creon attempts to shame Antigone and portray her as a villain
against the state, but she remains unrepentant, openly admitting
her crime and claiming it was her duty to bury her brother. Creon,
convinced that lsmene aided Antigone in this, summons her to face
the same penalty as her sister. When she arrives, lsmene claims
to have indeed assisted in the burial of their brother, but Antigone
refuses to acknowledge this and harshly criticizes and judges
lsmene for having taken no action previously. In her appeals to
Creon, lsmene begs him to consider his son, Haemon, who is
betrothed to Antigone, but her pleading falls upon deaf ears as

Creon is insistent that both women are to be put to death.

EPISODE THREE

0 Characters: Creon/Haemon.

- Action: In this episode Creon’s son, Haemon, asks to
have Antigone’s life spared. He explains that being the king’s son
has put him in the unique position of being privy to the attitudes of
the crown as well as the common citizen, and while he honors the
familial relationship of father and son above all, he, along with
many Thebans, considers Antigone’s actions to be honorable, and
as such her life should be spared. Creon becomes upset and says

that no man should put himself before the state and therefore the

13

decree must stand. In their argument, Creon angers Haemon with
his insults, and Haemon, after threatening suicide, exits in rage.
Creon then calls for the women, insistent upon their deaths. He
relents to some degree, however, by listening to the Chorus’ logic
that lsmene should be spared, and by deciding to have Antigone
walled into a cave on the outskirts of the city rather than having her

stoned as originally decreed.

EPISODE FOUR
- Characters: Antigone/Creon.
0 Action: This episode is Antigone’s funereal procession.
Resembling a choral interlude, the lines of the characters are
interspersed with those of the chorus and are more poetic and
interpretive than declamatory or conversational. Creon once more
denounces and shows his lack of pity for Antigone in one final

confrontation between them.

EPISODE FIVE
- Characters: Creon/1' iresias.
- Action: With Antigone having been sent off to her death,
Tiresias comes to Creon with portentous news. Tiresias tells Creon
that a great squabble of birds brought bad omens to him, and when
he made offerings to the gods they refused them. When he

explains to Creon that the gods are disgusted with the rotting of

14

Polyneices corpse and offended that he was denied the burial rites
that would pass his soul into their realm, Creon lashes out and
accuses Tiresias of accepting a bribe as a way to free Antigone.
After prophesying doom for Creon, Tiresias leaves in anger. Out of
fear for the prophesy, the chorus then pleads with Creon, finally

convincing him to relent and free Antigone.

EPISODE SIX

0 Characters: Messenger/Eurydice.
Messenger/Creon.

0 Action: A Messenger enters at the beginning of this
episode and proceeds to tell of what happened when Creon and his
attendants reached Antigone’s tomb. When they had cleared the
stones away from the entrance, Creon entered to find Haemon on
his knees clutching at the legs of Antigone who had committed
suicide by hanging herself. When Creon approaches his son,
Haemon draws his sword and rushes him. Stepping aside, Creon
avoids the blow, and Haemon, in his rage, runs himself through
with the blade, thereby taking his own life as he had threatened to
do earlier. Eurydice, Creon’s wife and mother to Haemon, having
now heard the story, is so distraught over the death of her son that

she takes her own life as well. In the end, Creon enters, having lost

15

all that was important to him, and accepts that it was his own

carelessness and intransigence which led to this tragedy for himself

and for Thebes.

Though Heaney and Cocteau each develop their own emphasis in regards
to theme and to the finer details of presentation, the structure for their plays
remains consistent from script to script, with little or no difference in their form,
content, or conclusion. Each play still consists of a prologue and parados,
followed by six episodes, each separated by a choral interlude, and concluding
with an Exodos. Clearly, the purpose of these playwrights is not to create an
original adaptation based on the Antigone myth, but rather to update a play that
has maintained its overall relevance to society.

In addition to the similarities each play bears to Sophocles in regards to
form and structure as a whole, they also compare closely on a more
particularized level as well. In each script are numerous lines that mirror one
another. In many cases these lines are a source of imagery or of cultural or
mythological allusion, but have little to do with furthering the actual plot; their
deletion, in fact, would have minimal impact on its outcome, yet each playwright
has seen fit to include them. To clearly illustrate this, a juxtaposition of these
lines has been broken down in the tables below. They show how each script

follows the original very closely in its detail and dialogue.

l6

PROLOGUE

 

Sophocles3

Heaney Cocteau

 

So he has decreed...to
you, to me. To me!

...for you and me. Yes, for me
too.

...for you and for me,
lsmene, for me!

 

Remember, too, that
we are women, not
made to fight with men.

We are just women. Women
unskilled in the art of
subduing men.

Two women on our
own faced with a death
decree—women,
defying Creon?

 

 

l have to please the
dead far longer than I
need to please the
living.

 

The dead in the land of
he dead are the ones
you’ll be with longest.

The time I shall have to
spend pleasing the dead is
far longer than the time I
must spend pleasing the
living.

 

 

EPISODE ONE

 

 

Sophocles

Heaney

Cocteau

 

...but leave him there
unburied, to be devoured
by dogs and birds.

Hereby he is adjudged a
carcass for the dogs and
birds to feed on.

I command that his
body be left to the
dogs and crows.

 

Creon: ...you defend the
law now made.

Chorus: No, lay that
burden on some younger
men.

Creon: ...I regard you... as
agents of the law.

Chorus: Younger men
would be better for that job.

Creon: Carry out my
order.

Chorus: Ask the
young men.

 

None are so foolish as to
long for death.

But who’d do that? Who
would choose to be dead.

No man is so mad as
to seek death.

 

...love of gain has often
lured a man to his

“There’s always money
lurking and I never

The hope of a purse
often makes men

 

 

destruction. underestimate the lure of mad.
money.
There was no mark of a No sign of pick-work or that There’s no sign of

pickaxe, no sign of
digging...no waggon had
been there.

 

class of thing. No rut-marks
from a wheel.

 

spades or picks. No
footprints. No cart
tracks.

 

 

3 All of Sophocles’ text has been transposed from verse to prose.

17

 

EPISODE TWO

 

Sophocles

Heaney

Cocteau

 

And sat down on a hill,
to the windward side
that so we might avoid
the smell of it.

So we stationed
ourselves at points
around the hill—out of
the wind, you know,
because of the smell.

Then we sat down on a
mound where there was a
breeze—because of the
stink.

 

...when she saw the
body bare, she raised a
cry of anguish...

She sees the bare
corpse and lets out a
screech.

...we saw this young
woman standing near the
body. Screaming her head
off.

 

In death they may be
reconciled.

The dead aren’t going to
begrudge the dead.

Who knows if your frontiers
have meaning in the land of
the dead.

 

 

Down then to Hell! Love
there, if love you must.
While I am living, no
woman shall have rule.

 

Go then and love your fill
in the undenlvorld. No
woman will dictate the
law to me.

 

Descend to the dead and
love whom you please. But
while I live, no woman will
make the laws.

 

EPISODE THREE

 

Sophocles

Heaney

Cocteau

 

See how the trees that grow
beside a torrent preserve their

branches, if they bend.

If a river floods the

bend to it survive.

trees on the band that

 

 

...the captain of a ship; let him
refuse to shorten sail, despite

the storm—he’ll end his

voyage bottom uppermost.

If a skipper doesn’t

his whole crew ends

 

slacken sail in a storm

up clinging to the keel.

If a captain blindly kept
his canvas stretched,
he would soon capsize
his ship.

 

 

EPISODE FOUR

 

Sophocles

Heaney

Cocteau

 

They tell of how cruelly
she did perish, Niobe,
Queen in Thebes...she
slowly turned to stone
on a Phrygian
mountain-top.

I am like Niobe, Niobe
turned to stone in the
thawing snow and
rain...SIuicing down the
ridge of high Mount
Sipylus.

l have heard how the
daughter of Tantalus died.
Suddenly, at the top of
Sipylus, she felt the rock
take her...

 

 

Fair Danae, who in
darkness was held,
and never saw the

pure daylight.

 

Danae too was walled up
in the dark

 

Danae also was buried
alive and sleeps in bronze.

 

18

 

 

 

EPISODE FIVE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sophocles Heaney Cocteau

Go, make your profits, drive Whoever wants can All right! Get rich! Trade
your trade in Lydian silver or cross your palm away! Win all the gold of
in Indian gold... with silver. Sardis and India.
EPISODE SIX

Sophocles Heaney Cocteau
The god coming with all I am under the A god held me by the throat, a
his weight has borne wheels of the god pushed me in the back.
down on me, and smitten world. Smashed to The whole house of happiness
me with all his cruelty. bits by a god. collapses upon me.

 

 

 

Cocteau and Heaney were both poets prior to taking on the helm of
playwright, but given that they span nearly one-hundred years themselves, from

1922 to 2004, their scripts differ in style and theme.

THE BUFflAL AT THEBES

Seamus Heaney’s play, written in verse, is poetic and eschews certain
theatrical conventions such as stage directions or line interpretation. Heaney
places his focus on the verse, the rhythm and metre of the poetry, and it is
through this that his characters are drawn (Heaney, Burial 78-79). He
establishes this from the very beginning, with Antigone’s first speech: “lsmene,
quick, come beret/What’s to become of us?/Why are we always the ones?” (ibid
5). According to Heaney, “...the three-beat lines established a tune. And with a
first tune established, it was then easy enough to play variations” (ibid 78).

Creon, too, is conventionalized by having him speak primarily in iambic

l9

 

 

pentameter, and the Chorus is given a four-beat rhythm full of alliteration that
rings of an Old English Epic like Beowulf (Heaney, Burial 78-9).

Heaney emphasizes both the concept of fate and the idea that divine law
supercedes the law of the state, which was the main theme of Sophocles. His
references to fate and the curse of Oedipus come as early as the Prologue, in
speeches by both Antigone and lsmene. Antigone, in her first speech, says:
“There’s nothing, sister, nothing/Zeus hasn’t put us through/Just because we are
who we are—IT he daughters of Oedipus” (5). lsmene makes an allusion to fate
shortly after: ‘We’re children of Oedipus—l...The king they drove from their
city./No matter he didn’t know./No matter it was Oedipus/...And now this last
thing happens/T he doom in our blood comes back” (9). His attention to divine
law occurs when he repeatedly includes lines such as “Now what has happened?
Is this/T he gods at work” (25), and “You have forbidden burial of one dead,/One
who belongs by right to the gods below./You have violated their prerogatives”

(61 ).

Where The Burial at Thebes strays from Sophocles is through its subtle
politics. Having grown up in Northern Ireland beneath the shadow of World War
II, and living in Belfast during the height of the IRA’s strength (Heaney, “Crediting
Poetry”), it’s not surprising that, when invited to write a version of Antigone for the
Abbey Theatre, Heaney recognized in the story a parallel between the
circumstances and dictums of Creon to those of President George W. Bush.
Both individuals challenge their citizens with the notion of loyalty to the state, and

the black and white options characterized in an “if you’re not with me you’re

20

against me” mentality (76). When Antigone confronts Creon on page 32, she
says “I never did a nobler thing than bury/My brother Polyneices. And if these
menNVeren’t so afraid to sound unpatrioticfl'hey’d say the same.” Heaney uses
words like “patriot” and “terrorize” on a number of occasions, both of which have
distinct connotations in our current political society. But even in this there
remains a resonance of the original Antigone in that Sophocles himself was
influenced by the nascent seeds of democracy that were sprouting in Athens at

that time.

ANTIGONE (COCTEAU)

Jean Cocteau was an artist who crossed various mediums and styles:
Cocteau lived and wrote in total freedom, unattached
to conventions, codes, schools or groups...At the
same time he did not claim to be perpetually inventive
or original and was always ready to listen, either to
Sophocles or the Surrealists. (Crosland 10)
This proves to be true with his Antigone as well. Written in prose, the dialogue is
sharp and rapid in its pace, oftentimes slicing directly to the point, and the
Chorus is diminished to the point where it is relegated to merely being a narrator.

As a result, his script is markedly shorter than the others and in places it plays

like gunfire from an automatic rifle, as is demonstrated from page 52 of the text:

Creon: Carry out my order.

Chorus: Ask the young men.

Creon: Guards keep watch over the body.
Chorus: What must we do then?

Creon: If laws are broken, be inflexible.

21

Chorus: No man is so mad as to seek death.
Creon: Death would be his reward. But the
hope of a purse often makes men mad.
(52)
At the same time, Cocteau includes stage directions that are symbolic and

even surreal in places. He describes the Chorus as being “concentrated into a
single voice which speaks very loudly and quickly as if reading a newspaper
article” (49), and:

For a revival in 1927, five monumental plaster heads

of young men framed the chorus. The actors wore

transparent masks after the fashion of fencing

baskets...The general effect was suggestive of...a

family of insects. (49)
While his is undoubtedly a presentation that doesn’t conform to other productions
of Antigone, it is also, in a sense, very Classical in that, like Sophocles,
Cocteau’s actors are both masked and represent mankind as a mere “insect” in
comparison to the gods or to the greater universe. He remains true to the
themes of Sophocles, much in the same way that Heaney does in The Burial at
Thebes, and according to Crosland, this was consistent to his overall method:

Cocteau was not concerned with constructing a

system, he merely said what he wanted to say. The

elements fall into place, they are complementary but

at the same time complete within themselves.

Cocteau did not wish to teach or analyze...His interest

in social conditions and politics was often naive or
clumsy. (17)

Both The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney and Antigone by Jean
Cocteau demonstrate that Western theatre is still strongly rooted in the ground

that the Greeks cultivated over 2,000 years ago. Essentially, each playwright

22

remains true to Sophocles’ Antigone in form and content. Though Heaney’s play
is laden with its contemporary world politics and Cocteau’s production style is
typical of the experimental conventions of the theatre during his day, the essence
of Sophocles’ play is fundamentally retained by each. The stories mirror one
another, the characters maintain their emblematic nature, and the same themes

are deeply imbedded throughout.

23

Extending the Myth:
Unique Adaptations of Sophocles’ Antigone

While some versions of Antigone closely resemble Sophocles’ play, such
as those written by Heaney and Cocteau, other playwrights take certain liberties
with the story. Either way, playwrights continue to find relevance in the Antigone
myth. The human struggle against an oppressive state, one of Sophocles’ main
themes, is emphasized in both Jean Anouilh’s and Bertolt Brecht’s adaptations of
Antigone. Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, written in 1942, first appeared in his self-
classified collection, Pieces noires", and was performed two years later in Paris
during the city’s Nazi occupation (Chaillet xvii). In 1948, Brecht adapted
Friedrich Holderlin’s 1804 German translation of Antigone, and in 1966 Judith
Malina translated Brecht’s adaptation into English (Malina v). Both adaptations

were strongly influenced by the war and the Nazi oppression.

ANTIGONE (ANOUILH)

In 1944 Jean Anouilh staged his version of Antigone. Under normal
circumstances this would have been at least a literary event, but given the
political nature of the story and the Nazi occupation of Paris at the time, it

became an event of heightened significance. These unique circumstances

 

4 “Plays Black.” This was one of many such groupings that include “Plays Pink,” “Plays Bright,”
and “Plays Grating,” a method he adopted from George Bernard Shaw, who also grouped and
labeled his plays.

24

required that Anouilh take greater precautions with his adaptation than many of
his predecessors. The result is an objectivity with which Anouilh manages to
create an ambiguous sense of loyalty and sympathy toward the characters of
Creon and Antigone simultaneously:

Antigone...had been seen by audiences in occupied

Paris as both collaborationist and as part of the

resistance. If Antigone’s stubborn insistence on

burying her brother against the state’s decree was

regarded as a covert statement of support for those

fighting the Germans, the tyrant Creon was seen to

be altogether too plausible and rational, a justification

for adherence to the imposed laws of a dictator.

(Chaillet x)

To further intrigue his audience, Anouilh disconnects them from the action
of the play by employing, somewhat ironically, a Brechtian device. In having the
character of the Prologue5 deliver a three page history of every character,
including their background and their relationships to one another, Anouilh
suggests that the “Antigone” portion is a meta-play, thereby establishing a safe
distance between his audiences and his play.

Anouilh continues this practice throughout the play, oftentimes as a way to
spin his audience’s sympathy toward Creon in dramatic moments that would
otherwise favor Antigone. Two such moments are at the peak of the
confrontation between Creon and Antigone, and shortly after the revelation of

Antigone’s death at the end. In the former moment, Creon’s sudden temper is

shielded from the audience and made to seem less tyrannous when Anouilh

 

5 Although sometimes delivered by the character of the Chorus, the Prologue is individualized
from the Chorus in the cast of characters, as well as in the text. As such, the decision has been
made to refer to the Prologue as a character, rather than a speech delivered by a character.

25

inserts into Creon’s line: “All right—I’ve got the villain’s part and you’re cast as

the heroine. You’re well aware of that” (112). The latter, spoken by the Chorus

after Antigone’s death, creates an even stronger disassociation:

So. Antigone was right—it would have been nice and
peaceful for us all without her. But now it’s over. It’s
nice and peaceful anyway. Everyone who had to die
is dead: those who believe in one thing, those who
believed in the opposite...even those who didn’t
believe in anything, but were caught up in the story
without knowing what was going on. All dead: quite

stiff, quite useless. (136)

By distancing his audience from the beginning it is obvious that Anouilh is

not simply re-telling the traditional Antigone myth as did Heaney or Cocteau. His

play retains only the basic framework of the original myth, and even adds new

scenes altogether as juxtaposed sequentially against Sophocles’ Antigone below:

 

Sophocles

Anouilh

 

 

- Antigone explains to lsmene how she
is going to bury their brother.

- Chorus Enters.

 

- Prologue/Chorus presents the back
story to all the characters and
establishes a meta-play format.

- Antigone comes home in the morning
after burying Polyneices. She is
confronted by her Nurse for her
improper and unladylike ways.

0 lsmene attempts to persuade
Antigone to not bury the body.

- Antigone meets with Haemon. She
expresses her love, but begs him to
leave and forget her.

- Antigone informs lsmene that she
has already buried their brother.

 

26

 

 

 

0 A guard informs Creon that
somebody covered the body.

- Choral interlude.

- The guard returns to Creon, this time
with Antigone, explaining how she was
caught

- Creon confronts Antigone, who

admits her guilt. lsmene is summoned
and subsequently exculpated.

- Choral interlude.

- Haemon confronts Creon.

- Antigone is escorted to her tomb.

- Tiresius tells Creon that the gods are
angry that the body of Polyneices has
been left unburied. He prophesizes
doom for Creon.

- Creon finally relents and rushes out
to release Antigone.

- Choral interlude.
v A messenger enters and describes

the death of Haemon and Antigone.

- Upon hearing the death of her son,
Eurydice commits suicide.

 

- A guard gives Creon the news that
the body has been buried.

- Three guards drag Antigone in

- Creon confronts Antigone and begs
her to repeal, explaining how he can
make it all work out for her. In doing
so, he tells an alternative story of
Polyneices/Etocles than is found in
traditional texts.

- lsmene enters and agrees to bury the
body, despite Creon’s decree.

0 Haemon confronts Creon.

0 Antigone and the first guard discuss
her fate.

- The other two guards enter and take
her away.

0 A messenger enters and describes
the death of Antigone and Haemon.

 

27

 

 

 

- A messenger informs Creon of 0 The chorus informs Creon of
Eurydice’s death. Eurydice’s death.

- Creon attends to his duties by exiting
for a meeting.

 

- Exodos. - End of play

 

As can be seen, Anouilh takes liberties with Sophocles’ plot. Structurally
he takes the basic storyline of the Antigone myth and extends it by presenting
scenes that take place between and around that basic storyline. Once the
Prologue has finished, Antigone enters her house where her Nurse is waiting for
her. It is dawn and she has just returned from burying the body of her brother.
This scene is followed by her meeting with Haemon, in which she declares her
love for him but also begs him to forget her and to leave her. The play continues,
when three guards bring in Antigone and proceed to discuss their prospective
reward; and later again, Antigone has a conversation with the first guard where
she dictates a letter and convinces him to bring it to Haemon.

With each of these examples, Anouilh either extends the action of a
traditional scene, as is the case where the guards bring in Antigone, or else he
sequentially slips in the action that takes place between the scenes of the original
play. In Sophocles’ play, Antigone explains to lsmene during the prologue how
she is going to bury her brother; the episode which follows is the Guard telling
Creon that Polyneices’ body has been buried. In Anouilh, Antigone’s intentions
are explicated through the character of the Prologue when he narrates the play’s
back story and the relationships the characters have with one another; after the

Prologue’s speech, however, Anouilh shows what happens between the time

28

 

when Antigone first buries Polyneices and the Guard brings its revelation to
Creon.

In doing this, Anouilh succeeds in creating relevance not just for Parisians
of 1944, but also for society in general. Theatre-goers now require a
verisimilitude in their characters, and Anouilh achieves this by mixing classical
ideas with colloquial speech (Chaillet xix). By substituting the one guard for a trio
and then having them discuss the coarser elements of society, he keeps his play
from being “remote, archaic, unreal” (Highet 537). At the same time, he takes
the entire myth and drops it fully into the present. In using modern references
such “court-martial,” “The Corp,” and “earning stripes” Anouilh crafts a play that is
much more accessible for the his audience.

His characters possess a sensitivity that is lacking in Sophocles’ play, and
in the end it may have been this convention more than any other that saved
Anouilh’s Antigone from the Nazi censorship. By allowing his characters a
truthful humanity his Creon “is no longer the harsh, intractable tyrant that
Sophocles created, but rather a man who himself is bound and trapped in the
administration of the law” (Highet 536), and so a great deal of sympathy can be
given him. Likewise, Anouilh individualizes his guards by providing them all with
names; they have families and they imagine being given a reward that they can
spend at the “Palace,” or the “Crown.” They are more than simply the practical
mouthpiece that Sophocles created in his lone sentry (ibid 537). This
personalization of the state and its military touches upon an issue that Eric

Bentley addresses in his book, The Play, a Critical Anthology.

29

The Greeks were more inclined than we to stress the
importance of the group, as against the individual, the
importance of law and its upholders. Following this
line of thought, it can be maintained that Sophocles,
in Antigone and Creon, has balanced, not right and
wrong, but one ‘right’ against another. (513)

Whether or not Anouilh subscribed to Bentley’s philosophy, his Antigone
clearly appealed to the collection of Nazi officers stationed in Paris, and this
ironically guaranteed the success of an incredibly political play from a playwright

who generally held great “disdain for political action” (Chaillet xix).

ANTIGONE (BRECHT)

Though Brecht’s Antigone is not as different from Sophocles as is
Anouilh’s version in regards to its dramatic action, it is immediately obvious, from
the moment Antigone first speaks, that Brecht has adjusted his version
thematically.

But our brother

Polyneices was even younger when he saw his
brother trampled

to death under the hooves of the war-horse. In tears

he fled from the unfinished battle; for others

another decision is made by the spirit of battle, when
with a hard

blow with his right he unnerves his hand. Now

the fugitive lurches forward

until he has crossed the Dirsean river—breathing a
sigh of relief

at the sight of Thebes, his seven-gated city—when he
is suddenly seized

3O

by blood-spattered Creon, who killed his brother—
standing behind them,
lashing them all into his battle—and he is
slaughtered.6 (16)
From this it is clear not only where Brecht’s sympathies lie, but also where he
intends for the sympathies of his audience to rest as well.

According to Brecht’s version, Polyneices and Eteocles were never
divided; rather they were comrades for Thebes in a war where Creon was
“lashing them all into his battle.” It isn’t the treasonous act at subjugating the city
of Thebes, then, for which Polyneices is guilty in the eyes of Creon; instead, it is
simply the act of desertion upon witnessing the death of a brother for whom he
obviously cared. Combined with the image of a “blood-spattered Creon,” and the
inference of blame that Brecht casts upon the king, the gory picture of a
tyrannical despot becomes assuredly associated with Creon.

A staunch Communist, Brecht was a vocal opponent to the Nazis and the
lingering post-war Fascism (Bentley, Memoir), and his Antigone is no exception
to these political proclivities. The idea of fate is nearly non-existent in Brecht’s
version, and instead he emphasizes the theme of the individual fighting against
an unjust establishment within the context of war.

In her preface to her own translation of Brecht’s Antigone, Judith Malina
mentions that “Brecht himself developed the text in a direction that underscores
the play’s relevance to the Nazi debacle” (v). This is illustrated by the fact that

the war which functions as a back story in each of the other versions, including

Sophocles’, becomes the context of action in Brecht’s play. In this version they

 

6 Brecht uses alternative spellings for some characters, but for the sake of consistency here the
choice has been made to standardize the names.

31

are in the midst of the war, as opposed to having just won it. Here, it is tangible
and present, but instead of it being fought at and around the seven gates of
Thebes where Creon and Eteocles are forced into a necessary stance of
defense, Creon has driven his war to the Argives. The war in Brecht’s Antigone,
as opposed to that in Sophocles, is an act of aggression, and he uses this to
establish an association between it, and the Nazis of World War II.

Brecht added an emphasis on the inevitable calamity
spawned by political rigidity for which the fate of the
Hitler regime clearly served as a model. This is most
evident in Brecht’s use of the character of Creon’s
son, Megareus, who is...commander of the armies
gone after conquest...Megareus is absent in the
Sophoclean version, but Brecht brings him onstage
for a blood-curdling monologue in which the dying
soldier describes in chilling detail the fiery rout of the
forces of the homeland. Thus Brecht attempts to
anchor his play...as firmly in the history of this century
as in the tales of the ancient world (ibid vi).

The conflict between Antigone and Creon depends upon this immediacy of
Thebes’ war with the Argives. It is also through this conflict that the issue of the
war is continuously brought to the fore of the play. He eliminates Creon from
episode four, where Antigone is escorted to her sentence. By avoiding the
confrontation between these two characters, Brecht allows his protagonist to
deliver a political denouncement of Creon, which associatively, denounces the
Nazi supporters as well:

You’re really the victims.

More mangled bodies

will be heaped up for you, unburied as a calm
for the unburied. You, who dragged Creon’s war
across distant frontiers, though you may

win battles, the last one
will destroy you. You, who called for booty, you

32

will not see full wagons, but

empty ones. I mourn for you, survivors,

—what you will see

when my eyes will be filled with dust! (48)

The tone Brecht creates is far more militant than that found in either

Sophocles or Anouilh. The characters are consistently unyielding, and each

episode is driven by the polarity of their black and white ideals. Creon holds to

his beliefs through to the end, agreeing to release Antigone only out of necessity

so that he may continue his war; and Haemon never separates his loyalties

between family and state in that a distinction is never made between his love and

loyalty toward his father and his anger at the injustice in his ruling.

Yet while Brecht’s ideologies may be connected to his own post-war

society, one cannot deny their parallels to the Athenian concept of homonoia7. In

both Brecht and Sophocles, Creon refuses to capitulate to the will of the people

concerning the burial of Polyneices:

 

Sophocles

Brecht“

 

 

Creon: What should be done! To
honour disobedience!

Haemon: I would not have you honour
criminals.

Creon: And is this girl then not a
criminal?

Haemon: The city with a single voice
denies it.

Creon: Must I give orders then by their
permission?

Haemon: If youth is folly, this is
childishness.

Creon: Am Ito rule for them, not for
myself?

Haemon: That is not government, but
tyranny.

 

Creon: ...But you, knowing little of the
case, knowing nothing, you advise me:
watch your step, look for alternatives,
talk to them in their terms, as if
authority could sway the many-bodied
masses to difficult deeds by being
nothing but a small, cowardly ear.

The liters: But it saps the strength to
think up cruel punishments.

Creon: To crush the curse to earth,
until it curses, requires strength.

The Elders: But the gentle uses of
order can do much.

Creon: There are many orders, but who
gives the orders?

 

 

7 See chapter one, page nine.

8 Selected text for both Sophocles and Brecht is transposed from verse to prose.

33

 

 

 

Creon: The king is lord and master of
his city.

Haemon: Then you had better rule a
desert island

Creon: This man, it seems, is the ally of
the woman.

Haemon: If you’re the woman, yes! I
fight for you.

Creon: Villain! Do you oppose your
father’s will?

Haemon: Only because you are
opposinLJustice. (26)

 

Haemon: Even if I were not your son I’d
say: you do.

Creon: If I am charged with it, I’ll do it
my way.

Haemon: Do it your way, but make it
the right way.

Creon: Not knowing what I know, you
can’t know what it is. Are you my friend
no matter how I do it?

Haemon: I want you to do it so that I
can be your friend. But don’t say you
alone can be right, and no other. (40-1)

 

Philosophically antithetical to Athenian homonoia, Creon’s egocentricity is

accentuated further by Brecht’s focus on the war between Thebes and Argos. In

his version, the war is omnipresent, and it is made clear throughout that it is a

war of Creon’s doings and desires. From Antigone’s rebuke at the beginning, to

the Messenger’s lengthy tale at the end of how the Theban army fell to the

Argives, the lines are clearly drawn. More than anything, perhaps, it is this

aspect of Brecht’s Antigone that separates it from Sophocles’. While Sophocles’

play may be underscored with themes of war, Brecht’s play ultimately is about

war.

The 19405 were a time of extreme political unrest. The effects of World

War II were felt to some degree across the globe, but for those in the direct line

of Hitler’s expansion, the war became a constant presence. In Europe,

playwrights like Anouilh and Brecht made use of the war in their work. With

Antigone, the theme of the individual’s struggle against an oppressive state

suddenly found a new relevance within the context of World War II. Though their

34

 

circumstances differed, as did their personal ideologies, neither Anouilh or Brecht
could escape the influence of World War II in their lives. Subsequently, in an
effort to criticize Nazi rule, each turned to Sophocles’ Antigone. By extending the
story of this Classic play, both Anouilh and Brecht found a way to make their
statement while minimizing the backlash from, or association to, the Nazi

movement during the war and the post-war years.

35

IV

Extracting the Story:
Drawing Inspiration from Sophocles’ Antigone

Playwrights also continue the expression of classic plays by using them as
an inspiration from which their own stories are developed. As already pointed
out, there have been no less than thirteen translations of Sophocles’ Antigoneg,
with numerous other unique adaptations beyond those. Of all the most recent
adaptations available, two have been chosen for this study. They include a
politically-charged meta-play entitled The Island by the South African playwright,
Athol Fugard, first performed under the title of Die Hodoshe Span in 1973 at The
Space in Cape Town; and Another Antigone by AR Gurney, first produced in

1987 at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

THE ISLAND

In 1958, Athol Fugard quit his comfortable, secure job in Cape Town
South Africa and moved to Johannesburg with his wife Sheila, and it is from there
that his career as a playwright began (Fugard, Preface v). It is important to note
how the political savagery of South African Apartheid10 influenced his writing

during his stay in Johannesburg, especially in regards to The Island:

 

9 See chapter one, page five.

1° The South African government had instituted numerous laws which effectively provided the
white minority with the ability to legally segregate, exploit and terrorize all non-whites. (United
Nations, “Human Rights”)

36

Those...years also coincided with intense police
activity and our group11 was targeted as highly
suspect. Rehearsals were broken up by police raids,
and periodically one of our number would disappear
only to turn up later in a kangaroo court on trumped-
up charges, which, in turn, would lead to
imprisonment on Robben Island. (ibid vi)

The Island is set in the South African prison on Robben Island, just off the
coast of Cape Town. Simply known as The Island, it was where most of South
Africa’s political prisoners were sent, including Nelson Mandela in 1963. The
climate was extreme and the conditions inhumane. White guards frequently
brutalized the black prisoners, many of whom died of tuberculosis due to a lack
of proper medical care. (Fugard 231 ).

Though the actual writing of the play was done by Fugard, it first
developed through workshop techniques. In a collaboration with John Kani and
Winston Ntshona, the three managed to pool information they had gathered on
the prison from friends and relatives who had been detained there at one time or
another (Walder xxviii).

To begin with, there had...been an image...with a
peculiar resonance which the three soon realized
would give them their subject. Fugard simply took a
large blanket and spread it outside his house on the
ground, asking Kani and Ntshona as an Exercise to
explore its space, to stand in the centre, to walk
around the edge. Then he folded the blanket again
and again, until there was just room for the actors to
stand. Then he asked them, ‘What do you think this
means?’ They realized it was a cell, and knew
instantly where the exercise was leading them: ‘To

take the island and say something about it.’ (ibid
xxviiI-xxix)

 

‘1 The Serpent Players, a theatre group with which Fugard helped institute, and from which The
Island would eventually develop.

37

They initially titled the play Die Hodoshe Span, which translated to ‘The Hodoshe
work-team,’ but changed it to The Island when it played at Britain’s Royal Court
Upstairs in 1973 (ibid xxix).

While other playwrights such as Brecht and Anouilh maintain the basic
framework of the Antigone myth through plot, Fugard employs a method that
Douglas Russell defines as “associationalism,” in his book, A Period Style for the
Theatre:

...the concept [is] the rendering of an artistic work,

even a classical Greek or Roman one, so that it

makes connections through personal or public

emotion with the past, the self, or the deeper realities

of life. (287)
Fugard creates a completely different story in terms of its dramatic action, but
nonetheless draws upon the themes of Antigone to do so. In The Island, nearly
all of the dramatic action takes place in the cell of two black prisoners, John and
Winston, who have been cellmates for three years on Robben Island. It is
through their lives in this prison during the height of South African Apartheid that
Fugard is able to employ this associationalism between his play and Sophocles’.

Like Sophocles’ Antigone, The Island presents a clash between the
People and the state. In Antigone the People are represented by the title
character, while Creon represents the state. In The Island, the People are
represented by John and Winston, two black prisoners who undergo various
forms of abuse through the course of the play at the hands of an

uncompromising and politically biased state, as personified by the prison and its

unseen, yet ever-present, white warders.

38

To illustrate this, Fugard creates a meta-play, where John and Winston

perform their own version of Antigone for the prison staff and their fellow inmates.

According to John, the story of Antigone, which he calls “The Trial of Antigone” is

broken into the following four stages: (1) The State Lays Charges Against

Antigone, (2) Pleading, (3) Pleading in Mitigation of Sentence, and (4) State

Summary, Sentence, and Farewell Words. In the end, “The Trial of Antigone” as

performed by John and Winston mirrors Sophocles through its dialogue in much

the same way that Heaney and Cocteau do, as shown in a representative sample

below:

 

Sophocles"2

Fugard

 

Antigone: Would you do more than
simply take and kill me?

Creon: I will have nothing more, and
nothing less.

Antigone: Then why delay? (18)

Winston: Full punishment? Would you
like to do more than just kill me?

John: That is all I wish

Winston: Then let us not waste any
time. (226)

 

Antigone: Yet what could I have done
to win renown more glorious than
giving burial to my own brother? These
men too would say it, except that terror
cows them to silence...

Creon: You are the only one in Thebes
to think it!

Antigone: These think as l do—but they
dare not speak. (1 8)

 

Winston: I buried my brother. That is an
honourable thing, Creon. All these
people in your state would say so too, if
fear of you and another law did not
force them into silence.

John: You are wrong. None of my
people think the way you do.

Winston: Yes they do, but no one dares
tell you so. (226)

 

 

Antigone: ...I give both love, not share
their hatred.

Creon: Down then to Hell! Love there,
if love you must. While I am living, no
woman shall have rule. (19)

 

Winston: I shared my love, not my
hate.

John: Go then and share your love
among the dead. I will have no rats’
laws here while yet I live. (227)

 

 

‘2 Selected text from Sophocles is transposed from verse to prose.

39

 

Fugard aligns The Island to Antigone on two different levels. On one
level, the meta-play, “The Trial of Antigone,” adheres to it by presenting a unique
version of the myth, albeit a condensed, specialized version. At the same time,
the dramatic action of the outer play, The Island, primarily revolves around the
rehearsals for, and discussions of, the inner play, “The Trial of Antigone.” As a
result of mirroring the inner play, then, the outer play is aligned with the Antigone
myth. Fugard writes The Island in four scenes, with each scene of the outer play
correlating to one of the four stages that John uses in “The Trial of Antigone,” as

shown below:

STAGE ONE: THE STATE LAYS CHARGES

Scene one of The Island makes numerous references to the
way John and Winston’s warder punishes them for not upholding or
completing the tasks with which they are frequently charged. In this
case, the state is laying charges on the two men. At the same time,
John, who plays Creon in “The Trial of Antigone,” charges Winston
with the responsibility of playing Antigone, a role he desperately
does not want to play. In essence, then, the state, as represented
by Creon, who is played by John, lays charges against Antigone,
who is played by Winston.

When John and Winston’s discussion turns to another
prisoner who was recently thrown in solitary for aggravating his
warder, John charges Winston with the responsibility to himself as

well as to his cellmate:

4O

John: You’re not alone in this cell. I’m

here too.
Winston: Jesus, you think I don’t know that!
John: People must remember their

responsibilities to others. (204)

STAGE TWO: PLEADING

In this scene, both Winston and John resort to pleading. To
begin with, John must re-double his pleas to Winston when he
adamantly refuses to play Antigone after John laughs at the way he
looks in the costume; and later, when John returns from meeting
with the warden, Winston begs John for them to perform something
other than Antigone: “Please listen to me, John. ‘Struesgod I can’t
do it. I mean, let’s try something else, like singing or something”
(211).

What Fugard does with scene two, as well, is establish the
circumstances necessary for stage three. In order to plead in
mitigation of the sentence, there first must be a sentence. In this
scene, John learns that his sentence on Robben Island has been
reduced so that he only has three months remaining, and while this
initially appears to be an answered prayer, when faced with it in
relation to Winston’s life sentence, the news, and his impending
release, actually becomes a new sentence for both men, as

evidenced by the last line of the scene, when John says:

41

...three months! Those three months are going to feel

as long as the three years. Time passes slowly when

you’ve got something...to wait for...Look, in this cell

we’re going to forget those three months. The whole

bloody thing is most probably a trick anyway. So let’s

just forget about it. We run to the quarry tomorrow.

Together. So let’s sleep. (215-16)
STAGE THREE: PLEADING IN MITIGATION OF SENTENCE

In scene three John’s reduced sentence has actually
become a sentence in its own right for both men. Winston’s
happiness for John sours, and as it does he pushes the details
upon him as a form of guilt and punishment. When faced with the
details of this new sentence, John pleads with Winston to stop: “No!
Please, man, Winston. It hurts. Leave those three months alone”
(218).
STAGE FOUR: STATE SUMMARY, SENTENCE, AND
FAREWELL WORDS

The dramatic action of scene four consists entirely of John
and Winston’s performance of “The Trial of Antigone.” Within this

inner play, all four stages are represented, thereby completing the

mirroring of the outer play with the inner play.

42

ANOTHER ANTIGONE

Unlike Fugard, Gumey’s play links to Antigone less through
associationalism13 and more through simple association. In The Island the
unique storyline remains true to Sophocles on a conceptual level so that no
matter how different the plots are, they are still both a means to the same end;
but in Another Antigone, Gurney’s allusions to Sophocles’ Antigone creates an
extended metaphor rather than a thematic parallel. As a result, neither the action
nor the themes of Gumey’s play are dependent upon its use of Antigone
specifically.

In Sophocles’, the conflict between Creon and Antigone have far-reaching
ramifications that impact all of Thebes as well. As a commentary on the socio-
political atmosphere of its day, the characters are representative of a larger
whole. The same is true with the conflicts and characters from The Island.
Gumey’s play also comments on today’s social mores in the form of anti-
Semitism and higher education, but he does so at a more personalized level.
The conflict and the outcomes have no impact beyond the immediate lives of the
characters, and the characters have no representation or meaning in the larger
social context. Yet, despite all this, Another Antigone bears enough similarities
to Sophocles to warrant its study. Though the presence of Antigone may not be
exclusively necessary to the overall story, it does add a texture to the play that
would not othenlvise exist.

Structurally, Another Antigone resembles Fugard’s handling of The Island

in that Gurney establishes comparisons to Sophocles’ Antigone on multiple

 

‘3 See page 38.

43

levels. Set at a university in Boston, in this version a college senior, Judy, is
confronted by her professor of Greek tragedy, Henry, for not following the criteria
of a recent assignment he gave to the class; instead of writing on one of the
approved topics, she writes a version of Antigone, and it is around this conflict
that the dramatic action of the play revolves. In developing this internal play, the
symbolism within the outer play links back to Sophocles.

At the beginning of the outer play, Henry and Judy are in Henry’s office,
discussing the paper that Judy has turned in. Despite that Henry has previously
stated that only the pre-approved topics will be accepted for the papers, Judy has
decided to write a play, a version of Antigone which centers around the nuclear
arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States. When Henry refuses
to accept Judy’s play in lieu of the paper, Judy, feeling oppressed by Henry and
the educational establishment, refuses to concede and write a new paper.
Gurney ends the scene with Judy reading from her play: “People of this land, we
suffer under a yoke./A tyrant rules our city, and unjust laws/Now squelch all
forms of perfectly plausible protest” (9).

With this scene, Gurney establishes the Antigone theme in the outer play.
Henry becomes the Creon figure in the outer play to Judy’s Antigone figure. The
symbolism that links the outer play to Sophocles’ Antigone exists because of
Gurney’s inclusion of the inner play. As a result, Another Antigone revolves
around Sophocles’ Antigone on two levels. Not only is Judy’s play based on

Antigone, but it also provides the inciting incident from which the conflict arises.

Without Sophocles’ Antigone included as a plot device through the inner play,
there would be no association to it in the outer play.

Through this, Gurney successfully aligns his outer play, Another Antigone,
to Sophocles’ Antigone on a symbolic level. His two main characters, Judy and
Henry, are representative of Antigone and Creon. Both exhibit a stubborn pride
that rivals their Sophoclean counterparts, and Judy even goes so far as telling
Henry on page 53 that they “are basically very much alike.” Judy has ultimately
defied the orders of her teacher in the same way that Antigone defied Creon’s
decree, and although the consequences for Judy’s actions are not as tragic as
Antigone’s, her decision to go ahead and perform her play rather than write a
paper on one of Henry’s topics nonetheless jeopardizes her graduation, a fate
akin to professional suicide in the Yuppie-driven society of the 19803 when the
play was written. At the same time, Henry is as much an uncompromising
dictator in his classroom as Creon is in Thebes. This is demonstrated in the
scene where Diana, the Dean of Henry’s department, comes to his office and
requests that he reconsider his stance concerning Judy’s paper. Even in light of
the fact that Judy will not graduate if she fails his course, Henry remains
unmoved:

Do you know what tragedy is Diana?...l don’t think
you do, Diana. I don’t think anyone in this happy-
ending country really does. Tragedy means the
universe is unjust and unfair, Diana. It means we are
hedged about by darkness, doom, and death. It
means the good, the just, and well-intentioned don’t
always win, Diana. That’s what tragedy means. And
if we can learn that, if I can teach that, if I can give

these bright, beady-eyed students at least a glimmer
of that, then perhaps someday we will...create a

45

common community against this darkness. That’s
what I believe, Diana. And that’s what Sophocles
believed in 443 BC. when he wrote Antigone...
Tragedy keeps us honest, keeps us real, keeps us
human...And that is why I cannot endorse what this
woman, no, this girl, is doing when she puts on her
strident little travesty for the passing parade in
Spingler Auditorium on graduation weekend. That is
not tragedy, Diana. That is just trouble-making. And I
cannot give her credit for it. (17—18)

Further establishing this symbolic connection between his play and
Sophocles’, Gurney creates circumstances for his characters which correlate to
those found in Antigone. Henry has two sons, both of whom are grown and never
call him, and a wife who has left him. In essence, Henry has also lost his entire
family. Judy’s life also parallels that of her mythical counterpart. Like Antigone,
Judy grew up in a well-to-do household. Her father is a doctor and her mother a
psychiatrist. On page 24 she describes herself as having been the stereotypical,
pampered daughter of a Jewish family “in a healthy suburban environment,” and
in doing so tacitly agrees with Henry’s portrayal of her as being a Jewish
American Princess.

Through continual references to the elements of Greek tragedy, Gurney
successfully links his play to Sophocles’ on an associative level as well as a
symbolic one. He ties into the theme of fate with lines such as “I guess I’m
doomed to be alone” (37), and by mentioning how Henry and Judy “are on a
collision course” (35). The theme of gender, specifically that of the woman’s role

in society, that Sophocles raises in Antigone, is alluded to as well when Judy

says:

46

All us women now killing ourselves to do those things
that a lot of men decided not to do twenty years ago.
I mean, here we are, the organization women,
punching the clock, flashing the credit card, smoking
our lungs out, while the really smart men are off
making furniture or playing the clarinet or something.
(38)

While establishing the association between the inner play and the outer
play, which in turn creates the link between the outer play to Sophocles’
Antigone, Gurney also creates a third level of presentation by having his
characters at times address the audience as if they were students in the school
who had gathered there for a meeting or a class. By weaving this into the
dramatic action he manages to further connect, as well as distinguish the
difference between, his play and Sophocles’.

When the characters in the play address the audience, they establish
themselves as something similar to a Greek Chorus. On page nine, after the
opening scene, Diana enters and delivers the following speech to the audience
as if they were a group of students who had gathered specifically for the
purposes of this assembly:

Good morning. I spoke to you as freshmen. I speak
to you now as seniors...A number of you have
recently complained about the traditional courses
which are still required. Why, you ask, with tuitions so
high and the search for jobs so increasingly
competitive, are you forced to take such impractical
courses?...After all, they are concerned only with
some book, some poem, some old play. “Only some
work,” as my special favorite Jane Austen once said,
“in which the best powers of the mind are displayed,
in the best chosen language.” Well, there you are.

They’re the best. And we need no reason beyond
that to justify, for example, Professor Harper’s course

47

on Greek tragedy. It deals with the best. It exists. It
is there. And will remain there, among several other
valuable requirements, for what we hope is a very
long time.

Structurally speaking, her entrance corresponds to the Parados of Sophocles’

play, where the Chorus makes their first entrance following the Prologue of

Antigone and lsmene. Thematically, Gurney uses Diana’s speech not only to

further the action within the outer play, but also as a means to comment on the

society in which the plays exists. This is not unlike the purpose of the Chorus in

Sophocles at the end of the Parados:

Surpassing belief, the device and
Cunning that Man has attained,
And it bringeth him now to evil, now to good.
If he observe Law, and tread
The righteous path God ordained,
Honoured is he; dishonoured, the man whose
reckless heart
Shall make him join hands with sin:
May I not think like him,
Nor may such an impious man
Dwell in my house. (14)

At the same time, Gurney takes advantage of this third level by using it to

point out how his play is not the tragedy that Sophocles wrote. This is

demonstrated when Henry addresses his final class just prior to the final scene of

the play:

First, let me remind you what tragedy is not. Tragedy
has nothing to do with choice. If you can choose, it is
not tragic...Perhaps because of this freedom, it is
impossible for us to sense what the Greeks called
tragedy. We have no oracles, no gods, no real sense
of ultimate authority to insist that if we do one thing,
another will inevitably follow. We are free. (58)

48

In the end, then, Gurney uses this third level of presentation, to show that
while the inner play of Another Antigone may be considered tragic, the actions
within the outer play are not. In doing this through the use of a type of
environmental theatre, he has incorporated his audience into the dramatic action
of the outer play, thereby commenting associatively on the social relevance of
Sophocles’ Antigone to our contemporary world.

By fusing the themes of their plays to Sophocles’ Antigone, Fugard and
Gurney create neither an adaptation nor an extension of the myth. What they do,
instead, is create an entirely new story that parallels Sophocles’ Antigone by

using it as a driving force behind the dramatic action for their own unique plays.

49

V

The Antigone Myth:
A Conclusion and Thoughts for Further Study

The myth of Antigone has been the subject for countless plays through the
centuries, beginning with Sophocles in the Fifth Century BC. and continuing
through to today’s playwrights. It is to Sophocles that all other adaptations can
be traced, and it is due to the universality in the themes of Sophocles’ Antigone
that these adaptations are able to find success today. Although the religious
implications in Sophocles’ play no longer bear meaning for today’s audiences,
the story’s richness has given rise to its other themes instead. Society has
always empathized with her as a representation of the individual fighting against
a more powerful, oppressive establishment.

Playwrights such as Fugard and Anouilh are able to employ this
association as a means to express a political statement, either against their own
or another country’s unjust policies. At the same time, other playwrights draw
from it to make a social statement, as seen in Another Antigone through
Gumey’s commentaries on the educational system and on anti-Semitism. In
addition to these, playwrights such as Brecht recognize the play’s relevance in
terms of gender issues: “Brecht was no doubt first drawn to Antigone by the
power of the ancient archetype: a woman alone defying the power of the state—

a pungent parable for any time” (Malina v).

50

 

The key to Malina’s statement above is her use of the word “archetype.” It
is because the two opposing figures of Creon and Antigone are essentially
archetypal in nature that the themes of Antigone can be so widely applied.

Highet touches upon an explanation for this when he mentions how some
scholars, on the basis of Freud’s theories, believe that the universal appeal of
myths in general is due to the fact that they center around characters who “are
not so much historical individuals as projections of the wishes, passions, and

hopes of all mankind” (524).

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

- lsmene: Of all those born into the House of Labdacus, or
associated with it through marriage, only lsmene escapes tragic
consequences. Both she and Creon survive the Theban plays, and
while neither are left with any surviving family, lsmene has not been
burdened with her own tragic ending, unlike Creon, whose actions
brought upon him the tragic death’s of his wife and son.

lsmene is the only character of royal blood who doesn’t take
an active part in the events which culminate in tragedy. In fact, the
only action she takes in regards to these events is to disassociate
herself. At the beginning of Antigone she refuses to assist in the
burial of her brother, and it is this decision not to participate that
ultimately saves her life when she later begs Antigone to allow

them to die together.

51

 

0 The Guard: More than any of the other secondary
characters, the Guard is given various treatment in the different
adaptations. Both Brecht and Heaney, for instance, initially drop
his dialogue into prose, only to pick up the verse later on. Anouilh
gives his guard a name, creates an additional scene between him
and Antigone, and extends the action of the traditional guard
episodes while introducing two more guards. At the same time, the
character of the Guard is much more human and intemally fraught
in recent adaptations than in Sophocles’ original text.

- The theme of money: In Sophocles, the evils of money
permeate the story. In episode one, just prior to the Guard’s
entrance, Creon insinuates how the lure of money might be more
powerful than the fear of death in reference to his decree that
Polyneices was not to be buried: “Death is indeed the price, but
love of gain/Has often lured a man to his destruction” (9). Likewise,
when Tireseus tells Creon of his eventual downfall, Creon responds
by charging him with having taken a bribe. This occasional yet
overt reference to money, despite that it does nothing to further the
action of the play, leads one to question its presence and purpose
in the text.

From the golden age of Greek theatre to the present, playwrights have

continuously turned to myth as a source for their writing. In addition to his

52

 

Antigone, Anouilh also wrote Eurydice, and Cocteau’s Orphée is often
considered to be his masterpiece (Wildman 2). In myth, playwrights have always
found long-established subjects that, while rooted in the classical era, still
maintain a relevance amidst the fickle tastes and sweeping changes of today’s
society. Gilbert Highet may have explained it best when he wrote:

[Myths] deal with love; with war; with sin; with tyranny;

with courage; with fate: and all in some way or other

deal with the relation of man to those divine powers

which are sometimes felt to be irrational, sometimes

to be cruel, and sometimes, alas, to be just. (540)
Perhaps it is because of this that playwrights are still drawn to the stories of
ancient myth. Yet, no matter what the reason may be, the fact remains that
neither cultural restrictions nor socio-political circumstances have been able to

curb this attraction to myth, or compromise the poignancy and effectiveness of

the myth when handled by an accomplished playwright.

53

 

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55

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