This summer’s production marks the third time my life and this script have intersected. Today, let’s talk about the first time.
CAVEAT EMPTOR : I’m about to tell a story from when I was in high school, circa 1997. My memory is dogshit. If anyone else who was actually there somehow reads this and remembers it differently, they are probably right.
If you’ve ever wondered why I am like this about theater, it would probably be important context to know that I was exposed to Bertolt Brecht before I was seventeen. In Troup County, GA – before the turn of the millennium, my peapod little brain already knew who Thespis was, the power of the triangle, all of the words of ‘No Diggity’, and that Neil Simon is for the squares. Much of this is because my high school was blessed with absolutely aberrant teachers running the Drama Department. The same year we put on Anouilh’s ANTIGONE, we also did The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Yes, if you want to be truly pretentious you need to get a big head start in your formative years. I think our director was working on an MFA during the summers, so he used our productions for class credit. I only remember that because he -unwisely- told us his professors were coming to see our production of Chalk Circle. I had this bit of stage business where I was supposed to open a giant book and blow a small amount of flour off the page to sell that it was old and dusty. The effect hadn’t really worked that well during rehearsal, so I decided to put probably ten times as much flour as normal so that the performance he was being graded on would have some extra juice. I blew so much flour into the air that it covered me and my scene partner and I ad-libbed a completely unnecessary ‘WHEW! DUSTY!’. The look of pure hate he shot me as I came off stage is something I’ll carry with me to my grave. Later on, he told me that Brechtian theater does like to over emphasize the stage effects to make them transparent and artificial, so he was probably not going to be penalized too much for my help.
In my defense, I have no idea why I did any of that. Impossible to reconstruct this far down the time stream.
But, back to ANTIGONE.
Our production was staged outside. Platforms and acting blocks, a couple of ramps – all painted black. (some of you are pointing at the screen like Dicaprio right now) The whole cast wore black pants and white dress shirts – except for a few additional costume pieces here and there. We wore no shoes. It was a long time ago, the dawn of the internet, so people being into feet was something we were, as yet, blissfully unaware of. Our director had taken the Chorus monologues and chopped them up, splitting lines among the ensemble, pulling that role closer to a more traditional Greek chorus. He also, I learned weeks later, cut out big chunks of Creon’s speeches for time. I played Creon. These two facts have no connection.
This was probably my first exposure to a play where the props and costuming was purposefully representative. These are not the literal clothes, these wooden swords are not the real swords. It’s just a symbol. Something in my peapod brain cracked a little bit. The SYMBOL is more than the THING. Instead of this specific object, this is ALL POSSIBLE VERSIONS OF IT.
This is to say I thought it was super clever when I found a piece of nylon rope and spray painted it gold to wear as a CROWN. Someone in the audience, a younger sibling of one of the cast, audibly asked ‘why does he have a snake on his head?’.
Why indeed.
I remember:
- the actress playing the Nurse had a Scottish accent, I think just because she could kind of do an okay one?
- the actor playing Haemon, my friend Nick, was something of a hot commodity in those days and him kissing an UPPERCLASSMAN was a bit of a scandal, she briefly caught feelings, it was a whole thing
- the actress playing Antigone was a legendarily good on-stage cryer
- The climactic ‘Take away the stones!!!’ fell a little flat when we all just had to sort of walk a few feet away from the playing space and then awkwardly turn around and walk back on for bows
I don’t remember — having any sort of thought about the play itself or any sort of larger meaning it might have. I was a Drama kid, I was in all the plays, this was another one. But a fair amount of the words stuck with me.
You are like dogs that lick at everything they smell.
Antigone finally gets to be herself.
TAKE AWAY THE STONES.
It is strange to look back, nigh on 30 years later. It didn’t have meaning for me then. It was just something I did. As a person who has been involved in theater my entire adult life, it is interesting how rare repeats are. When I was younger, each play was its own singular event, here and gone and never again. But now, I’ve had shows that I’ve been in multiple productions – I’ve directed the same show more than once. I think I talked about it a good bit years ago when I directed OKLAHOMA! – that the great works are always connected, cheating time or at least circumventing it. I’m here, I’m there, I’m 17, I’m 46, I’m 10, I’m a thousand years old.
So, that was the first time. I’m not planning on any direct homage or reference to this ancient production – except for maybe that gold rope crown. Maybe the audience just wasn’t ready for it yet.
spell-sword.com 