ANTIGONICK

ANNE CARSON, AFTER SOPHOCLES

TORONTO SUMMERWORKS FESTIVAL 2014

The audience enters with Nick alone onstage, measuring

Nick starts the show by writing the name of the play on the wall. Photo by Dahlia Katz

Antigone and Ismene - lit by one lantern

Just after Kreon's entrance through the wall. Nick measures.

Nick repairs the holes in the wall, only to have them torn down again. Photo by Dahlia Katz

Kreon and Antigone confront each other in a dance

Kreon sits on his throne. Eurydike has cut a hole behind him and does her nails.

Antigone is led out to be buried alive. Photo by Dahlia Katz

Antigone pleads for her life. No mercy.

Choral ode after Antigone is led off to her death. Nick manipulates overhead projector.

Eurydike enters through the wall

Eurydike's monologue

After he drags on his dead son, Kreon rips the cardboard off the walls. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

The carnage and destruction of the set was different at every performance

What remains after the show

Carson's adaptation/translation of Sophocles' ANTIGONE was created to be experienced on the page. Her book contains her hand-inked text, with mysterious spaces and pauses, as well as illustrations by Bianca Stone, seemingly unrelated to the story, on vellum pages that overlay the text. Her language is strikingly contemporary but also has the heightened nature of Greek tragedy. Carson also adds a character that is not in Sophocles: Nick. ("Nick, a mute part is always onstage. He measures things") In this staged version, director Cole Lewis and the design team wanted to honor the object of the book, as well as Carson's evocotive and confrontational language. So actors write and draw on the "pages" of the white walls, and projections overlay the writing. We thought the play had a wild west/post-war suburban desert feel. For Kreon's entrance, we had him cut a door in the cardboard wall. Actors continued to cut holes and shapes in the wall as the play progressed, and Nick continued to repair the holes with tape. In the last scene, when Kreon realizes his stubborness has killed his wife and his son as well as Antigone, he rips the remaining cardboard off the walls, leaving the bare wooden skeletons and a destroyed world.

Directed by Cole Lewis

Set Design: Reid Thompson

Costume Design: Clelia Scala & Alexa Fraser

Lighting Design: Masha Tsimiring

Projection Design: Nick Hussong

Original Compositions: Joe Lapinski

Sound Design: Sam Ferguson

Photographs: Reid Thompson & Dahlia Katz