Common themes in today’s literature and theatre, such as courage, determination, jealousy, love and faithfulness, existed more than two millennia ago when the ancient Greeks incorporated these ideas in plays, prose and poetry. Exposure to the classics can help us to understand better the origins of Western civilization and the ideas that continue to shape our world.
Wilmington College Theatre is presenting Antigone by the Greek playwright Sophocles for a three-night run on Feb. 27, 28 and March 1, at 7:30 p.m., in Hugh G. Heiland Theatre. Tickets can be ordered online via <wc.booktix.com>.
Dr. Marta Wilkinson, professor of theatre, is both a member of the cast and serves as the show’s dramaturg. Dramaturgy is the practice of sharing the understanding of the play’s structure, context, characters and language with the cast and crew — and audience.
Antigone, by Sophocles, was first performed in 441 BCE. Wilkinson shared the play’s premise. As the sun rises over Thebes, two brothers battle to the death in hand-to-hand combat, ending a civil war over the throne. Eteocles and Polyneices had agreed to share the throne in turns, but at the end of the first year of Eteocles’s rule, he refused to cede his power. Polyneices returned with allies and attacked the city and his brother. With King Eteocles dead, their uncle Creon suddenly finds himself ruler of Thebes, duty-bound to honor his fallen nephew and punish the crime of treason. Now, King Creon declares Polyneices a traitor and passes a law threatening penalty of death that his body be left outside the city walls, thereby denying him burial.
“In Greek tradition, burial rites are performed by the women as an essential step for the shade (soul) of the deceased to enter the Underworld. Without the rites, the shade is left to wander for all eternity,” she added.
Wilkinson said this edict leaves the title character, their sister Antigone, with an impossible choice: “Does she honor her brother and observe the cultural rites of burial that are her familial and religious duty? Or does she respect the new law and leave his body for the ‘vultures to find and pick to the bone’?”
She noted that, in a world where women, even royalty, cannot be citizens, Creon can only conceive of the political act of treason as a crime committed by an enemy. When evidence is discovered that someone has performed burial rites on the corpse of Polyneices, Creon demands to know, “What man has dared to disobey my orders?”
One of only seven surviving works by the celebrated Athenian playwright Sophocles, Antigone “explores the boundaries of legal and moral reasoning by questioning the role of the individual in society. What happens when personal duties and moral obligations conflict with those of the state? Within its historical context, what obligations to the state does a young woman even have?” she added.
Written first, Antigone is the last installment of the plays known as “The Oedipus Cycle” or “The Theban Saga.”
“Even before the publication of the prequel, Oedipus Rex, Greek theatre-goers would have already been familiar with the myth and the fate of the royal family of Thebes. Oedipus Rex describes the tragedy of Oedipus, who is cursed because of the actions of his father, Laius,” Wilkinson said, noting that Antigone and her siblings are the children of Oedipus and his wife/mother, Jocasta, “the third generation bearing the burden of the same curse.”
Learn more about WC Theatre’s production, including the cast and crew at: https://www.wilmington.edu/news/wc-theatre-to-present-the-greek-tragedy-antigone