everyone stop what you’re doing
there’s a platypus on your dash
Antigone review
Chris Eccleston’s Antigone had its second preview last night. I was lucky enough to get front row seats.
SPOILERS (yes spoilers for a millennial-old play. Some might not want to know production details)
It’s a dark and claustrophobic updating of the classic play. Set in the 1980s and with all but one scene located inside an open-plan office, bad polyester suits and clunky early-80s technology rule. Initially I thought the set looked Soviet, and the programme has pictures of German bunkers, but the clothes, hairstyles and technology are more 80s American. The text is very clear and uses a modern English translation.
Despite the title it is Creon’s play, not Antigone’s. I have seen productions that focused more on Antigone’s journey, this is not one of them. Apart from the first scene Creon is rarely off stage, retreating to a smoke-glass walled inner office at the back of the stage between scenes. In a bleak cold opening single-minded Antigone, blank against a blank wall, shares with her sister her uncle and future father-in-law King Creon’s ruling that their deceased brother’s body should be left to rot as penance for his treason. The set swivels to reveal Creon in his dingy cluttered office announcing this ruling, ignoring the unease of his secretaries and political advisers (making up the traditional Chorus) at him defying tradition and religious death observances. Creon here is a modern day politician, all rolled up shirtsleeves and buckling down to paperwork, trying to control a rowdy populace but unable to hide his growing madness and ego. Almost immediately he learns his ruling has been broken and demands blood. Obsessed with civil disobedience and order more than justice or humans, he is almost an Orwellian character, pacing, barking, and sweat-stained. Antigone is caught returning to the grave she made, proud to be guilty, not defiant so much as filled with dead souled moral certainty.
Three people visit him to try to sway his mind, like Christmas ghosts. First his posh and pink cheeked young son, who begs for his beloved’s life not by appealing to emotion but by pointing out she has already become a martyred heroine in Thebes. They spar verbally for what is probably the first time he has ever stood up to his father, until Creon wrestles him to the crowd and physically sits on top of him. It would be funny if they weren’t so deadly serious. It is both a politician taking down a rival and an aging father reminding his growing son that he is still the Alpha male. Perhaps not for very long, but for now.
Second Antigone, terrified now and crying, pleading over her miserable life and imminent death. Yet with a certain stoicism as she refuses to either resist or admit fault as she’s body searched, cuffed and taken away to be walled up alive.
Third the prophet Tiresias, who warns Creon that the Gods will destroy him and kill his son if he continues to offend them by leaving a dead man unburied. Creon ever the politician puts on a cynical front and attacks the seer, sneering about buying his predictions being a political game. Unfortunately this scene was hampered by some truly terrible fake burns makeup which looked exactly like Tiresias has noodles superglued to his head. In the original text Creon about-faces as soon as Tiresias leaves, but here the turning point is a technological attack as tape recorders, fax machines, and wire services go into meltdown and start churning out stories of Antigone’s sacrifice and heroism. As the machines overload and go to blackout Creon begs for advice. This scene is brilliantly played as CE maintains his rigid bearing and manner and keeps his collapse entirely internal. He sends people to rescue Antigone and retrieve her brother’s body for proper burial but it is too late, his son and Antigone have both killed themselves. While he is gone his never-seen wife appears, overhears some men in the office talking about her son’s death and also kills herself. Creon is broken, covered in blood. The set swivels again bringing the production literally full circle as Creon now is cast out into the wilderness. The blankness of the city wall goes from being Antigone’s refuge where she can talk openly against Creon, to Creon’s tomb. He still breathes but no longer lives having lost his whole life.
It is claustrophobic, not dystopian as much as depressing. The set feels nicotine-stained even if it’s not and is littered with broken lamps. The chorus/advisers do odd things like stack coloured folders in repetitive patterns, and examine strange dead animals in jars. It is not an easy watch. It is not a play that panders or seeks to be mainstream. It is not a play that cares if you are entertained, as long as you are challenged. Having said that it is an unexpectedly funny play. Chris infuses his character with a lot of cynical dry Northern humour (both he and Jodie Whittaker use their own Northern accents, whi h no one else has, and the characters share a plain speaking attitude. I wonder if this is intentional and done to draw a comparison between them.) The sheer effort CE puts in is exhausting to watch. He isn’t the showman that David Tennant is - he doesn’t play to the crowds, but he is 100% committed in every cell of his body for every second of the play.
I was talking to Clever Bot earlier and at one point I mentioned David Tennant, and Clever Bot immediately responded with, “Married to John Sim.” (Sic)
Fess up, who’s been talking to this thing?
I read a fan post thing about someone meeting David Tennant.
I think he said that just because there were too many fans and he was busy with filming, or maybe he just didn’t want to that day for some reason. He definitely does hug fans sometimes. A group of girls I know met him while he was filming Nativity 2 and they all got hugs, and he hugged sometimes at MAAN stage door, but not always. I think it depends on the circumstances and how he’s feeling.
He doesn’t do hugs. Like he seriously doesn’t hug fans, but will do pictures and everything and is a sweetheart.
But he won’t give out hugs.
ASDFGHJKORESPAMITJVIUTHNJSRIULTWHKNIJ
I met David Tennant today. David Fucking Tennant. I’ve been looking for him since 11.04 and finally found him in Kanonia street in the Old Town, Warsaw. Thank you tuppenceplace so much for the info) I still can’t believe it.
When I saw him I was like ‘is it him? naaaahhhh it’s not’ but i came closer and said ‘excuse me, david tennant?’ or something, i don’t remember because of all these feelings. And there was an enormous grin on his face when i said that i love him and he’s my doctor and i’ve seen enough his other stuff to say he’s a brilliant person and he kept smiling and saying ‘thank you’. I was stuttering and my English was much worse than usually but he seemed to be used to fangirl behaviour. At least I didn’t ask him for an autograph when he was under the shower or to ruffle his hair. I also said that he’s got lots of fans in Poland and asked for an autograph for me and some other fans of him.
I was on the set so I was sure i wouldn’t be able to have a picture and i said it and David was like ‘why not? of course you can!’ and some security guy took a picture of us. The only thing he refused was when i asked him for a hug, he said he doesn’t do hugs.
And then some other fans came along and i was going to depart but then some guy asked me if he could interview me for a moment. He was an English journalist and he wanted to say how people in Poland know who David Tennant is and I started telling him about Doctor Who and other projects and interviews and I mentioned tumblr (sorry).
And I’m terribly sorry for the quality of this text because the style is shit and probably so is grammar but I don’t really give a fuck because 1,5 hour ago I met David Tennant and everything is perfect and nothing hurts right now.
That is a great pic, and I bet he’s jealous of that cool t-shirt.
Guide to loving your body:
1. Get naked and take a good long look at your body. Trace your stretch marks, feel your hip bones poking out, place your hand over your tummy and take a fistful of yourself in. Appreciate your scars and pimples, your uneven,large,or nonexistent breasts. Take pride in your un/shaven, un/cut, fantastically odd private bits. Hold up a mirror to yourself and study your body. Love it.
2. Be Ugly, reclaim words that are used to put you down and shut you up and scream right back at these fascist beauty standard reinforcing scumbags. Give them the finger and tell them to kiss your fat/skinny/somewhere in between ass ‘cause you ain’t got time to waste with their body hating bullshit. and remember, you don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Validate yourself by accepting yourself.
3. Wear clothes that don’t fit, that are too big or too small and show all your “problem areas” that cosmo insists you hide and walk down the street like the fucking fabulous queen you are. Sashay the hate away.
4. Do what YOU want with YOUR body. Shave or don’t, wear makeup or don’t, whatever choice you make is yours to make, and anyone who shames you for your decision can keep it moving. This also means respecting the choices of others, even if they differ from your own.
5. Surround yourself with loving and supportive people. Rid of the toxic bullshit in your life if possible, and immerse yourself in a community that embraces body positivity and diversity.
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| — | brazen bitch (via pussy-envy) |
