Antigone, Solihull College, Performing Arts

Solihull College Performing Arts, UK
Performing Arts Web Site: www.solihullarts.org.uk
College Web Site: www.solihull.ac.uk
Contact Number: +44 (0) 121 678 7000

Antigone, 19th & 20th June 2007, National Diploma Yr1
Synopsis
Setting: 1930's England. The Heptagon Club
Club Owner and Boss of Thebes Creon decides that Polynices the traitor is not to be buried, but his sister Antigone defies the order. She is caught, and sentenced by Creon to death - even though she is to be married to his son Haemon. After the blind musician Tiresias proves that the gods are on Antigone's side, Creon changes his mind - but too late. He goes first to bury Polynices, but Antigone has already hanged herself. When Creon see's, Haemon he is attacked by him and then Haemon kills himself. When the news of their death is reported, Creon's wife Eurydice takes her own life. Creon is alone.
Historical Context
Antigone (meaning The opposite of her ancestors) one of the three Theban plays by Sophocles (495 BC - 406 BC)
Antigone is the best-known daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. However, due to the incestuous nature of their relationship, Antigone is also Oedipus's half-sister and Jocasta's granddaughter.
Antigone's character and the incidents in her life present an attractive subject to the Greek tragic poets. Sophocles covered the details of her life and death in his Antigone and his Oedipus at Colonus. Euripides wrote a play Antigone, now lost, but fragments of which were incidentally preserved by later writers and in passages in his Phoenissae.
Sophocles departed from the original legend in the order of the events: according to the original, the burial of Polynices took place while Oedipus was yet in Thebes, not after he had died at Colonus. Again, in regard to Antigone's tragic end, Sophocles differs from Euripides, according to whom the calamity was averted by the intercession of Dionysus and was followed by the marriage of Antigone and Haemon.
In Hyginus's version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Haemon to be slain, was secretly carried off by him and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bore him a son, Maeon. When the boy grew up, he went to some funeral games at Thebes, and was recognized by the mark of a dragon on his body. This led to the discovery that Antigone was still alive. Heracles pleaded in vain with Creon for Haemon, who slew both Antigone and himself to escape his father's vengeance.
The Cast
Antigone; Daughter of Oedipus Danielle Goodfellow
Ismene: Daughter of Oedipus Stacey Hansford
Creon: Boss of Thebes - Beau Carter
Eurydice: His Wife - Gemma McCaffrey
Haemon: His Son - Shane Whitty
Tiresias:The Blind Musician - James Dainton
Sentry: - Jonathan Warrilow
First Messenger: - Lydia Senior-Augustine
Second Messenger: - Emma Walsh
Bodyguard 1: - Abbas Shoukat
Bodyguard 2: - Nicola Palfrey
Binns: - Kirsty Orr
Snout: - Nick Baigent
Crass: - Ashleigh Howard
Brag: - Nicketa Jackson
Sage: - Maria Pazouros

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Solihull
• College
• Performing
• Arts
• UK
• Antigone
• Drama
• Acting
• So