Patrick Comerford
‘Antigone 2084’ is a new adaptation by the Carabosse Theatre Company, in the Swinfen Harris Church Hall, beside the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road in Stony Stratford. The production opens at 7 pm tomorrow evening (19 June 2026) and runs for six days until 25 June, with an additional matinee showing at 2 pm on Sunday (21 June 2026).
This adaptation is set in Thebes in 2084, during a civil war between two rival brothers and involves two sisters who just want to do the right thing. Are the fates in their favour? Or will the family curse prevail?
The play is set in the near future after a great catastrophe and where hybrid Mortal / Corvids – ‘The Guardians of the Cord’, a secret society – act as the chief advisers to the new commander Creon.
‘Antigone 2084’ is part of a trio of Greek theatre female protagonists, following a tour by Carabosse with ‘Electra Unbound’ (2025) and ‘Medea’ (2024), and they end with this tragic tale of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus.
Thebes in 2084 is a dystopian utopia where civil war has torn the city apart and left two brothers dead and their sisters, Antigone and Ismene, with the role of burying their dead. But there is a tyrant antagonist, their uncle, the commander Creon, who seeks to find order with a new and stricter regime in place.
This is a beautiful tragedy with funny bits, singing, choreography and a classic and modern narrative as its backbone. It explores themes that are rather poignant and more topical than perhaps many would like.
Antigone (Ἀντιγόνη) is a Theban princess In Greek mythology and she is a character in several Greek tragedies. She was the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes; her mother or grandmother was either Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She was the sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.
Antigone appears in three 5th century BCE tragic plays by Sophocles, known collectively as the three Theban plays, and she is the protagonist in ‘Antigone’, the tragedy that has her name. She makes a brief appearance at the end of Aeschylus’s ‘Seven against Thebes’, and her story is also the subject of Euripides’s now lost play of the same name. While Antigone has few appearances in Greek mythology, Sophocles’s play has ensured her a revered and lasting legacy.
The story of Antigone is told by Sophocles in the fifth century BCE in his Theban plays, ‘Oedipus Rex’, ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ and ‘Antigone’.
Antigone and her sister Ismene are seen at the end of ‘Oedipus Rex’ as Oedipus laments the shame and sorrow he is leaving his daughters to. He begs Creon to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is led away. Creon prevents him from taking the girls city with him, and neither of them is named in the play.
Antigone serves as her father’s guide in ‘Oedipus at Colonus’, as she leads him into the city where the play takes place. Antigone resembles her father in her stubbornness and doomed existence. She stays with her father for most of the play, until she is taken away by Creon in an attempt to blackmail Oedipus into returning to Thebes. However, Theseus defends Oedipus and rescues both Antigone and her sister who was also taken prisoner.
At the end of the play, Antigone and her sister mourn the death of their father. Theseus offers them the comfort of knowing that Oedipus has received a proper burial, but by his wishes, they cannot go to the site. Antigone then decides to return to Thebes.
In ‘Antigone’, the play to which she gives her name, Antigone tries to secure a proper burial for her brother Polynices. Oedipus's sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had shared rule jointly until they quarrelled, and Eteocles expelled his brother. In Sophocles’s account, the two brothers agreed to alternate rule each year, but Eteocles decided not to share power after his term of office expired. Polynices left the kingdom, gathered an army and attacked Thebes in the war of the ‘Seven against Thebes’. Both brothers were killed in the battle.
Creon ascends to the throne of Thebes after the death of the brothers and decrees that Polynices is not to be buried or even mourned, on pain of death by stoning. When Antigone defies the king’s order, she is brought before Creon and confesses her crime. She knew about the king’s edict that Polynices should be neither buried nor mourned, but she claims divine law is morally superior to human law.
Antigone’s self-defence in defiance of Creon is passionate, courageous and determined. Creon orders her to be buried alive in a tomb. Although Creon has a reluctant change of heart and agrees to release Antigone, he finds she has hanged herself. Creon’s son Haemon, who was engaged to Antigone, make an unsuccessful attempt to kill Creon and then kills himself with a sword. His mother Queen Eurydice also kills herself in despair after the deaths of her sons, Haemon and Megareus, which she blames on Creon’s misrule and misjudgement. By her death, Antigone ends up destroying the household of her adversary, Creon.
Antigone also appears briefly in Aeschylus’s ‘Seven Against Thebes’, where Antigone and Ismene mourn the deaths of their siblings and Antigone defies an edict against the burial of Polynices.
Antigone is a stubborn and defiant heroine has become the embodiment of the ideal female character. As such, she contrasts with her beautiful but docile sister Ismene. In his play ‘Antigone’, Sophocles dramatises the dangers of allowing a ruler to attain absolute power, personified in Creon, the tyrant to whom few speak openly and who leaves few able to speak their true opinions. The people of Thebes know he is wrong, but they have no-one who risks telling him so or who is willing to engage in civil disobedience.
When Antigone is condemned to death, is it too late? Creon’s actions lead not just to the death of Antigone, but to the destruction of the city. Creon is unable to admit that he is mistaken. And so, Antigone hangs herself.
The play has influenced and been criticised by modern philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, in his essay The Ode on man in Sophocles’ Antigone.
Sophocles, in this play, is arguing that Athens needs to be saved from imminent destruction. He warns the people of Athens against arrogance which may lead to their destruction and downfall. Citizens cannot abdicate the responsibility of citizenship.
It is also a debate how to treat foreigners and citizens who are seen as identifying with the outsider and risk being outcasts themselves. Betraying the leader is now identified with betraying the state and betraying society. There are laws higher than those of the state, we cannot be expected to obey the law above all else, and tyrants do not have the last word. The law is not absolute; nor can we allow rulers to be absolute either.
There seem to be lessons there for many political societies and leaders too, and Antigone is seen today as influential figure in discussing higher moral principles that place a greater demand on us than the laws and decrees of temporal rulers – an important debate in resisting capricious and despotic rule in many places today, particularly the US under Donald Trump’s regime.
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) presents Antigone as a figure who exposes a tragic rift between the so-called feminine ‘Divine Law’, which Antigone represents, and the ‘Human Law’, represented by Creon.
The French philosopher and theologian Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), who was influential in developing and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, considers Antigone as the ‘heroine of the natural law.’ He writes, ‘she was aware of the fact that, in transgressing the human law and being crushed by it, she was obeying a higher commandment – that she was obeying laws that were unwritten, and that had their origin neither today nor yesterday, but which live always and forever, and no one knows where they have come from.’
No comments:
Post a Comment