Antigone | An Introduction | National Theatre at Home

Summary

The National Theatre's production of "Antigone" explores Greek tragedy through the lens of Aristotle's philosophy, emphasizing relatable heroes who make mistakes. It draws parallels with how ancient stories continue to shape modern storytelling, especially highlighting the timeless tale of the underdog fighting against societal norms. The production sets itself in a modern context, using an underground bunker to reflect the tension and repressed emotions that follow Oedipus's downfall. Through engaging workshops and research, the production aims to resonate with contemporary audiences and evoke strong emotional responses.

Highlights

• Aristotle's formula for relatable tragedy is evident in Creon's character, making mistakes yet trying to be good 🤔.
• "Antigone" as a story of the underdog resonates with audiences familiar with tales of fighting the system 🏆.
• Setting the play in a nuclear bunker brings a contemporary touch to Sophocles' political thriller 🕵️‍♀️.
• Workshops and research at locations like Churchill's War Room deepen the play's authenticity and immediacy 🎭.
• A focus on a young female lead provides a refreshing narrative perspective still impactful today 👧.

Key Takeaways

• Greek tragedy connects with audiences by portraying flawed heroes like Creon, making the story relatable and poignant 🤔.
• "Antigone" remains a timeless tale of the underdog, drawing parallels with modern narratives about challenging the system 🏆.
• The production's modern setting in a nuclear bunker adds a fresh, thrilling dimension to the ancient play 🕵️‍♀️.
• The National Theatre's innovative approach includes extensive workshops and research to make the play accessible and immediate 🎭.
• Featuring a young female protagonist continues to feel refreshing and relevant, even after 2,500 years 👧.

Overview

Ah, Greek tragedies — the cornerstone of theatrical storytelling! This introduction to National Theatre's adaptation of "Antigone" dives into Aristotle's belief of relatable heroics. He famously argued that heroes should be fundamentally good but flawed enough to relate to. Enter Creon, the good king making tragic errors, embodying Aristotle's tragic hero perfectly and eliciting the audience's pity and fear.

"Antigone" is hailed as the classic tale of the underdog. It's a narrative so deeply entrenched in human sympathy — the struggle of an unlikely hero against a rigid system. This retelling places the myth in a modern context, within the tense confines of an underground bunker. This fresh setting not only contemporary but also retains the urgency and political intrigue from 2,400 years ago.

The National Theatre's production is rooted in research and innovation, with workshops drawing insights from historical settings like Churchill's War Room. These meticulous preparations make "Antigone" accessible to today's audiences, retaining its dramatic potency. Featuring a young woman as the lead character, this production revitalizes and showcases the enduring nature of Sophocles’ storytelling.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Aristotle's View on Greek Tragedy 4th Century Greek philosopher Aristotle conducted the first significant study of Greek tragedy, pondering deeply on its effectiveness.
• 01:31 - 03:00: The Relevance and Excitement of Directing Greek Plays The chapter explores the relevance and excitement of directing Greek plays, specifically focusing on the character dynamics within them. It highlights how characters, such as Creon, strive to do good but often falter due to their mistakes. Creon, attempting to be a good king, ends up creating more problems through his errors. This narrative illustrates the complexity of seemingly 'good' characters who, much like any average person, can face misfortune due to their imperfections. The text discusses the journey of a character from a state of happiness and wealth to one of misery and despair, emphasizing the emotional impact this transformation is supposed to have on audiences, as originally articulated by Aristotle.
• 03:01 - 04:30: The Story of Antigone The chapter titled 'The Story of Antigone' explores the elements of Greek tragedy, focusing on the emotions of pity and fear that such plays are intended to evoke in audiences. The discussion highlights how these emotional responses are achieved first through the character of Antigone and later through Creon. Aristotle's perspective on tragedy's purpose, which includes invoking these feelings, is examined. The narrator also expresses the excitement and significance of directing a Greek play, noting their lasting influence as foundational elements of drama.
• 04:31 - 07:30: Contemporary Approach to Antigone This chapter explores the contemporary significance of classic dramatic storytelling, particularly focusing on 'Antigone'. It discusses how such high-stakes, concise, and compelling dramas remain foundational to modern storytelling concepts, emphasizing the timeless appeal of the underdog narrative as epitomized in Antigone. The chapter conveys the enduring impact of these ancient stories on our imagination, highlighting their influence on various modern narratives and genres, especially in the portrayal of unexpected triumphs typical of many sports movies.
• 07:31 - 10:30: Setting and Design of the Play The chapter 'Setting and Design of the Play' discusses the timeless appeal of the play 'Antigone.' The focus is on the audience's natural sympathy for a character battling the system, as well as the significance of having a young woman as the protagonist. This aspect remains intriguing and somewhat rare in contemporary narratives, suggesting a unique point of engagement for audiences. The chapter highlights how these factors directly converse with the audience, emphasizing the enduring relevance of the story.
• 10:31 - 12:30: System Building and Workshop Influence The chapter discusses an interesting piece of drama where the character, a young girl, is the one the audience roots for. This is considered refreshing even after two and a half thousand years. The drama involves two brothers, both deceased, and a decree from Creon about burial rights. This theme was a significant draw for the speaker.

Antigone | An Introduction | National Theatre at Home Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the first really important study of great tragedy was by a 4th Century Greek philosopher called Aristotle and Aristotle thought for a very very long time about what made Greek tragedy effective and he actually came up with a formula and that is that the heroes of tragedy needed to be good but not so good that you sort of couldn't relate to
• 00:30 - 01:00 them people trying to be good but making mistakes like Creon he is actually trying to be a good King of Thieves he's just not getting it right he's making lots of mistakes and the good guy who isn't good enough but he's pretty much like you or me makes a mistake it ends in in in some terrible misfortune and he goes from a status of being sort of happy and Rich and and content to utter misery and utter despair what Aristotle says this should do to the audiences
• 01:00 - 01:30 make feel incredible pity for the people they're watching which I think we certainly do in Antigone first for her and then by the end for Creon I'd also fear that oh if I put a foot roll that might happen to me and it's those two emotions that Aristotle says that try to do really needs to elicit well I think that the whole idea of directing a Greek play is a really exciting thing to do in and of itself the thing that I think is um Most Fascinating about these plays is that they still form the building blocks
• 01:30 - 02:00 to our imagination still 2 000 years on we've come up with few if any better ways of telling a story than these very very um high-stakes compact driven um really exciting pieces of drama so for me they still form the building blocks of our imaginations they're getting to tackle one um was a really exciting thing in and of itself and then in terms of Antigone I guess it's the original story about an underdog every sports movie that you ever see about an unlikely winner on
• 02:00 - 02:30 some level I think is based on our sympathy for somebody who is fighting against the system we all know what it's like to feel sympathy for somebody fighting against the system and really Antigone is the original story about that so it was something that I felt um I had a very direct conversation to be had with the audiences and I suppose the third thing is that it's really exciting to be looking at a play um where the protagonist is a young woman it's um surprisingly unusual even now I think to
• 02:30 - 03:00 find a piece of drama where the person who we're most instinctively rooting for is played by the young girl and uh that felt like a particularly I mean it's odd that it should feel like a refreshing thing to do but it's still at two and a half thousand years old feels refreshing and uh that was a big draw for me personally too we have two brothers both of them dead and Creon has decreed that a decent burial should be given to one and not to the other at here please apparently has already
• 03:00 - 03:30 been buried with full military honors and all the formalities due to the dead meticulously observed so that his rest in the Underworld among the heroes is assured but polynices who died in agony just as certainly as his brother did is not to be buried at all a lot of theater if it's classical The Stereotype is to do our pink which is fine I've been to drama school classically trained is fine but Polly was really excited by the fact that we've created a world you
• 03:30 - 04:00 know really we should be speaking Greek but we're not so I can have my voice and having my voice meant that causes a lot of aggression I think it felt important to find a way of making the play Feel accessible what I was really Keen to do was to try and work out what the play might have felt like to sophocles's audience so it feels like it felt like the major challenge as a director was to say what was the gesture that Sophocles was
• 04:00 - 04:30 making for an Athenian audience in 400 and whatever it was BC so and it seemed to us what he was really doing was making a political thriller so it felt right from the off that the thing definitely not to do was to make it a period piece to make it feel like it belonged to a world that was completely separate from the political world that we know and understand so I think that there was a drive right from the beginning to make it feel immediate and contemporary
• 04:30 - 05:00 foreign
• 05:00 - 05:30 so we had this idea which we knew we were going into the workshop week with of setting the play in an underground bunker we felt that Antigone was very much a play about what had happened after Oedipus so the Oedipus is a play
• 05:30 - 06:00 if it's a family Trilogy Oedipus is the play where it all goes wrong where all the terrible secrets are uncovered so an Antigone definitely then becomes the play about putting the lid on that about Neurosis repression fear sweeping things under the carpet so it felt that the logical extension of that was to make it in an underground actual underground government facility we did a lot of group research which would do with the design of the show
• 06:00 - 06:30 show is set in what could be Loosely termed a nuclear bunker a war room um a place of safety during conflict that is where the play takes place so we visited [Music] um similar places to that we went to Churchill's War Room in in Whitehall there the place where Churchill retired to during the blitz whenever the
• 06:30 - 07:00 bombs were falling he would do go there as a place of safety and also as a nerve center to orchestrate the the conflict from those trips and other trips that Polly had made we started to build a system or several different systems that might work in the environment we were in so there were three exercises one was to do with the Army one was to do with facilities and there was another one I can't
• 07:00 - 07:30 remember what it was uh intelligence the Gathering of intelligence and spying on people and things like that so we'd we'd work out a um in the Army one you need someone at the top who makes all the decisions and somebody who gives that person some information and somebody that gives that person some information to give to that person all the way down to the people that get the information and the people then that make the tea and things like that and we ran improvisations to see whether our systems we'd built worked
• 07:30 - 08:00 some of them did and lots of them didn't and then they slowly made it into the production and so that influenced people's jobs hugely and the things that we now have on the stage come directly from their workshop there will be Victory celebrations today singing in the streets time to dance all night foundations till the faint light of dawn flushes the windows now with both brothers gone
• 08:00 - 08:30 Creon is King he made the most of his fortune and God's choice as the people Rejoice the new King enters to take his throne the responsibility his alone