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Ancient Greek tragedy

 

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> ‘Antigone’ play review

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

Ae war with deep-seated
scars, two irreconcilable
frameworks of rightfulness, and a
family mired in inescapable tragedy
are laid out in Douglas College’s
latest theatre production Antigone,
which opened on March g.

Originally written by Ancient Greek
playwright Sophocles and adapted by
Kathleen Weiss, Antigone is a timeless
debate between the rule of law and
justice according to morality. The city
of Thebes has just emerged from a
brutal civil war that has left two princes,
Eteocles and Polyneices. dead and their
uncle Creon as king. Creon declares
Eteocles a hero for defending Thebes,
but decrees Polyneices, who led the
army against the city, a traitor whose
corpse is to be left unburied. Antigone,
sister of the late princes, is determined
to defy Creon and lay Polyneices’s body
to rest—even though the punishment
for breaking the king’s edict is death.

The Theatre Department's
production is directed by Thrasso Petras
and stars just six actors: Dayna Hoffman
as Antigone; Nelson Ellis as Creon;

Emily Thorne as Eurydice, Creon’s wife;
Kobe Doi as Haemon, their son and
Antigone’s betrothed; Amy Collisson

as Ismene, sister to Antigone, Eteocles,
and Polyneices; and Sara Dunn as the
Chorus. These characters convey an
intense and nuanced range of sentiments
and sympathies. Antigone is willful and
guided by her faith in what she considers
rightful, regardless of the consequences,
while Creon resolutely binds himself

to laws and political stability, believing
strict order to be necessary for peace and
security. The other characters struggle
to reason with one or the other while
balancing their own notions of justice,
self-preservation, and familial duty.

The play’s story is straightforward
enough, with a short run time of a
little over an hour uninterrupted.

Plot and length are more than

enough for Antigone to reflect deeper,
systemic questions about the basis of
governance and punishment, questions
that resonate throughout the grief-
stricken family, the war-torn city of
Thebes, and many parallel debates
throughout history and society.

Every character is brought to life
full of emotion and motivation, with
the unyielding convictions of Antigone
and Creon, and the passion of Haemon

> A look at the 2018 Oscars

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

Ihe Academy Awards show this

year managed to be fun and
exciting while addressing serious
issues in an informative way.

After the Time’s Up movement
began with many women making
allegations that Harvey Weinstein
sexually harassed and abused
them, it seemed possible that a lot
of people were going to talk about
the movement during the Oscars
this year. Also, films are starting
to be more diverse with films like
Wonder Woman, Black Panther and
A Wrinkle in Time being released.

This year was the goth edition of
the awards show, and Jimmy Kimmel
hosted it again. He did many things
similar to what he usually does on
his show Jimmy Kimmel Live. He
offered a jet ski and a trip to a resort
to the person who read the shortest

acceptance speech, and he actually
gave these prizes to the person
who won the Academy Award for
Best Costume Design for Phantom
Thread, Mark Bridges. Also, Kimmel
and various people surprised an
audience at an advance screening of A
Wrinkle in Time—the host gave them
popcorn, candies, and hot dogs, and
he asked someone in the audience
to introduce the next presenters. He
was even able to fit in one or two Matt
Damon jokes; he apologized to the
servicemen and servicewomen because
a scene of Damon in Saving Private
Ryan was shown during the tribute
to the troops, and at the end of the
evening apologized to Matt Damon for
“running out of time” to feature him in
the ceremony—as Kimmel and Damon
have had a longstanding (joke) feud.
The film that won Best Picture
this year is The Shape of Water, and it
also received the most wins, with four
awards. Along with Best Picture, the
film won Best Director for Guillermo

who tries to persuade his father to
be merciful to Antigone, standing
out especially. Compellingly, the
characters and the political extremes
they embody are not merely blindly set
in their own worldviews—they’re also
hauntingly familiar and empathetic,
as the actors persuasively articulate
how core beliefs can drive people to
such fundamentalist positions.
Dunn’s portrayal of the Chorus
is also very powerful. Greek tragedies
in their original forms typically had
choruses of over a dozen members,
and the chorus served as both narrator
and character, commenting on and
challenging other characters’ actions.
In this adaptation, Dunn as the one-
person Chorus performs both of these
functions and more: She is a journalist
interrogating Creon on his edicts,
providing a tempered mix of third-
person journalistic impartiality and a
news-hungry public fascination with
political and intrafamily drama.
Antigone is running in the small
venue of the Studio Theatre, allowing
the show to encompass the whole
space on all sides and top to bottom.
The set, which includes one sloped
surface and one set of stairs leading to
a platform, allows for some dynamic

del Toro, Best Production Design,
and Best Score. The awards were
also a win for Canada because it was
filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, and
it was made with a Canadian crew.
Dunkirk won three awards
including Best Sound Editing, Best
Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing.
It sounds great because the audio
effects make it feel like that you are in
Dunkirk when the action is happening.
Three Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri received two
awards, including Best Actress
for Frances McDormand and Best
Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell.
Darkest Hour also got two awards,
including Best Actor for Gary
Oldman and Best Makeup. Some
of the other films with two awards
are Blade Runner 2049 and Coco.
Allison Janney was given Best
Supporting Actress for I, Tonya.
In screenplays, Get Out won Best
Original Screenplay for Jordan Peele’s
script, and Call Me by Your Name

‘Lion in the Streets’ opens March 16

 

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is now

‘Life is Strange: Before the Storm’ video

game review

And more!

 

expressions of authority by utilizing
physical displays of elevation.

The play’s production team
augments the show to its fullest. Shifts
in colour and intensity, along with
costumes that mix classicism with a
contemporary flair, accentuate the
stark contrasts around which this play
revolves—life and death, the rule of
law and a higher moral authority, as
well as internal and external war.

For all its power in calling into
question ideological foundations,
however, one of the most haunting
aspects of the play is the foreboding
suggestion that, for some, there
is no simple easing of tension—
all paths lead to tragedy.

Antigone runs until
March 16, Tickets are still

available at antigonezo18.
brownpapertickets.com/.

Photo by Thrassa Petras

 

won Best Adapted Screenplay for

James Ivory’s script. McDormand

ended her acceptance speech as

if she was introducing a product,

with a phrase that will hopefully

cause more people to be involved

in the film industry: “I have two

words for you: Inclusion rider.”
Inclusion rider is a clause that

can be put in an actor’s contract when

they are preparing for a film in which

the actor can ask a studio to hire

certain groups of people—such as 50

per cent women—to make a film. In

another show of standing up for social

justice, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and

Annabella Sciorra talked about Time’s

Up and introduced a segment about

films being more diverse, encouraging

more people from marginalized groups

to be involved in the film industry.
While the Academy Awards

this year had the lowest ratings

in its history, it was still an

exciting and very diverse show.

Celebrating diversity at the Academy Awards