Theban Diary #3

March 27, 2026March 27, 2026 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Several people have sent me the excellent NYT article about all the current ANTIGONE productions happening in the city. It’s well worth reading, exploring the various versions/adaptations – with a passing nod to our own Anouilh’s script.

Let’s all pause to have me admit that I never EVER spell his name correctly on the first try. He’s the sitiuation of French playwrights.

The article has two perhaps unforeseen effects.

Making me feel very hip and savvy to have tapped into the cultural winds that have brought so many adaptations of ANTIGONE to the Big Apple, all the way from my chair in Athens, GA on the absolute bottom rung of THEATRICAL ART.
Drawing my attention to the Greek word ‘deinos’. *ominous rumble of thunder sound clip / specifically the Sesame Street – Count von Count one*

Antigone can be an extreme character. The word used to describe her, and many Sophoclean protagonists, is deinos. It means “strange” or “uncanny,” describing a world-breaking stubbornness that is simultaneously unyielding, magnificent and frightening. Even when her sister, Ismene, is trying to comfort her, Antigone throws herself in harm’s way. Her unreasonable righteousness is indistinguishable from self-destruction. Antigone never tries to save herself, or operate in secret. Instead, she speaks out, placing her beyond Creon’s ability to forgive — and also giving her qualities beyond the human. “I follow death, alive,” she says.

Antigone, deinos to the max, created the model for a particular kind of (anti)heroine: the “bad girl.” She is disruptive, a total pain, unpliable and correct. Sometimes this figure is interpreted as a kind of punky riot grrl, or a protofeminist, or a mentally troubled woman. Thanks to Sophocles, who was writing in a time when women didn’t rate as citizens, “girl” is now another word for “courage.” Imagine one, arms akimbo, ponytail flying, and you automatically picture her facing down the world. – Helen Shaw / NYT / Who is Antigone? The 2500- Year Old Greek Heroine Who’s Story Never Gets Old

Reading this passage – I felt a nice little LEGO block snapping together type feeling. Finally, a perfect Greek word for this woman coursing with electricity, something for my brain to hang all sorts of thoughts on. I’ve been trying to describe her to friends and actors interested in our production and the best I’d managed so far was “Antigone has a knife. She always has a knife. Everyone in the scene knows she has a knife but no-one knows if she’s going to stab them, herself, or nobody at all. She will never put down the knife. Sometimes, she hides the knife…poorly.”

Photo: Matt Hardy Photography / Model : Lily Medlock

It also doesn’t hurt that ‘deinos’ is the root from which DINOSAUR was created.

I find it deeply interesting how much Anouilh’s script focuses on this strange otherness in her — and how much the character grapples with it herself. She seems desperately to want to be any other person, to have any other destiny. The lines about how she dressed herself in Ismene’s style in an attempt to please Haemon, or perhaps to just squeeze out from under her appointed role for a few hours are pathetic. But unfortunately she is ‘fucked by fate’ as that modernized version of Beowulf said of Grendel. The few breaths of relief when she almost leaves the stage under Creon’s advice, almost to be merely human. But, as the Chorus reminds us, there is no escape in tragedy – that is the majesty of it.

Theban Diary #2

March 16, 2026 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Photo shoot this weekend! I love directing a photo shoot, boy howdy. Mainly because I wish I could take actually good photos – so instead I point my friend Matt’s actual talent at what I’m vaguely gesticulating towards. An image can be a perfect expression of an idea – or maybe several – evoking an entire world of feeling, frozen in a moment. Or if nothing else, just looking rad as hell. People often forget that the majority of the purpose of art is just to rule.

We’ll be shooting in my beloved’s theater at UGA Dance Department, so of course I’m simply salivating about being to have some real goddamn negative space to play with. BIG EMPTY pleases this little peapod brain of mine – and it is especially satisfying as an environment to consider the character of Antigone. So much of the script focuses on her isolation – on being separate and cut-off – by bloodline, by destiny – almost to the point of treating her as non-human. I enjoy the ambivalence. The script has a bent towards deifying her – but also so many images of the unnatural, bordering on paranormal.

You come from a people for whom the human vestment is a kind of straitjacket: it cracks at the seams. You spend your lives wriggling to get out of it. Nothing less than a cosy tea party with death and destiny will quench your thirst. / CREON

The overtly theatrical tone of the play also lends itself to this – the image of her being pushed on stage to play a part. A role that she chooses, but also is desperate to deny. Deny what it means to be Oedipus’ daughter, to be Jocasta’s daughter, to be Antigone. A whole section of the photo shoot is putting an Oedipus mask, complete with bloody tears, on our model – in wide, in closeup.

I have a pack of extra masks, maybe throw some on whatever bodies I have to put in the background, out of focus – looming, judging, demanding. Weird photos are the best, boy howdy.

Sometimes I think I should just do weird photo shoots and skip the attached play, podcast, other media, etc.

Theban Diary #1

February 18, 2026 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Now I lay me down to show prep, may my course be blessed by Hermes Threewizards. The future is unclear and storms unpredictable, but still I can put extra caulk between the boards of my hull and lay in as many oranges and packs of Buldak as this craft will allow. Preparing to direct a play is basically just an emotional exercise as nothing you plan will survive the first encounter with the enemy — the enemy is basically every component of the thing. Cast, crew, set, costumes, illness, cowardice, caprice, and Capri Sun.

To catch you up: I am directing a production of Antigone (Jean Anouillh/ translated by Lewis Galantiere) this summer. Auditions are in June, show opens in August. This is my 14th time in the director’s chair with this company, stretched over a couple of decades. I’m a goddamn warhorse at this point. The days of directing out of social pressure, vague artistic yearning, or purely atavistic conviction are behind me. Basically I only direct these days when I’m legitimately excited about a project and have every intention to get real weird with it. Or, more to the point, I work on projects when the ceaseless alarm clock in my mind sounds that I haven’t done something sufficiently cool to justify this entire plasma-type personality matrix I’ve been rocking.

I was chatting with some other theater people recently and I dropped some questionably sage wisdoms over pancakes. Maturity is just accepting what truly motivates you – boiling away all of the vague trappings of success, art, and progress. For me, everything I do ties back to wanting cute girls to think I’m funny. That’s the real engine all this creative activity has been running on – moments of beauty and truth are completely unplanned and are more by-product than goal. Wild to think the lengths I have gone to make things of ever-increasing difficulty and complexity using nothing more than a 12 year old’s survival strategy – the forge of all that I have made is nothing more than a hastily assembled Easy Bake Oven with racing flames painted on the side.

And this show appeared early in that juvenile charlatan’s development. My high school performed this script, way way back in the late 90’s. (WAY BACK) What artistic style or proclivities I have in theater can almost be traced 1:1 back to this production specifically – and generally everything my high school drama teacher laid down as first principles in my peapod brain. He was getting his MFA in Theatrical Direction, so our high school productions were purposefully academic – I was exposed to Bertolt Brecht far too early to every truly recover. By it’s very nature high school theater – and community theater(!) – are art forms of limitation — usually financial. Leaning into the more imaginative and primal language of the stage has an immediate advantage when you can’t afford much more than a couple of flats and some chairs. But, don’t worry, I learned absolutely the wrong lesson as usual. A chair on an empty stage is IT, girl. A voice, two voices, three voices. The darkness. The light. The space that can be anything, can be everything, can be nothing. My artistic colleagues roll their eyes at my sets made of boxes and benches and empty air, much as I sneer at the door that needs a doorknob on BOTH SIDES.

I’ve also had the rare opportunity to have a trial run at directing this before. A few years ago I stumbled upon a copy of the script in a used bookstore and felt compelled (enticed by fate?) to put together a staged reading. I’ve been thinking about this show for years before, and the more I think about it (and the reading confirmed) – is that it doesn’t need any help. It doesn’t need to be set in Aghanistan or even Paris during the occupation. It’s always now. Every time I come back, it’s more topical – more to the point. Maybe just the years of watching fascism rise here, inarguable – impossible to not recognize – have made the script hit harder and harder. It doesn’t ask the audience to imagine a world without fascism — that is a pure impossibility. It’s asking how will you choose to live with it. Or perhaps die under it.

This is a play about sound, about voices. The little human moments before the machinery of it pull the god in Antigone to the fore. And then the goddamn bars when Creon and she argue. What a strange thing to recognize as familiar, the curse in the blood, the glorious idiocy of revolt.

I know more now, I have more tricks up my sleeve. This time I’ll catch it, this time it won’t get away from me. Maybe.

A chorus is a weapon built to assault heaven. Human energy brought together, bound by time, focused and sharp. Let’s point a gun at god and demand that they dance.

Supply Run

January 19, 2025 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

This has been sitting in my drafts for a couple of years. – Author

Walking through snow is like ink on paper: convincingly permanent. The traveler’s toes were cold in their thin leather boots, but the crunch of his tracks writing their way between the trees remained satisfying. Crunch crunch crunch crunch, he echoed in his thoughts and watched the plume of steam float up from his open mouth.

The traveler’s pack was heavy, but his brain was light — one recently filled at the town some miles behind, the other recently emptied by long months free from concern or duty. In all honesty, no mortal life is truly free of worry and peril, but this traveler was blessed and cursed with a mind as flat as a kitchen table. Whatever he hit with his elbow fell off the table and was there entombed and forgotten in the unblinking darkness of the Kitchen Beyond. All that is left is the meal before him, spoon diving into potatoes and thin beef and then flying to his lips. A simple mind, a simple table, a simple man.

Those potatoes are a bit soft, I’ll cook those tonight. Jonas nodded to a passing pine, branches heavy with snow. With that loin? Or maybe save that for tomorrow? The pine gave no comment on his unspoken menu planning.

Jonas stopped and pulled the hood of his brown cloak back and shook it free of the dust of snow that had gathered. His hair was dark brown, curled into a thick pelt like a sheep’s. A smattering of sad hair on his cheeks and chin indicated his age was somewhere in the perilous vale between a child and a child that could be trusted with picking out the color to paint their bedroom. The heavy pack almost concealed but did not obstruct the hilt of a sword ready to grasp at his right shoulder. He tucked his thumb into the red cotton sword strap that ran across his chest and took stock of his progress.

The town of Clairmont was several miles behind to the north, but he had left the main road nearly an hour ago. He had made this journey several times before, but not regularly – he took great pains to never go to the same settlement more than once every few weeks, alternating and changing his supply runs between a half dozen similar small towns, encampments, trading posts. The snow was doing its best to obscure a prominent pile of rocks he used as a landmark, but with little success. Sorry snow, those rocks look just like a dog’s head on top of a mushroom, no way I’d miss it. Jonas nodded again. Only a couple of more miles until I hit the river, then south to get home.

He stretched his shoulders and let the pack settle its weight properly across them again. Home. The word felt warm, even though it only meant a small shack next to a frozen lake. Four walls, two beds, a stone oven and chimney. Home…crunch crunch crunch crunch. His boots and thoughts aligned and he continued on his way past the pile of rocks and towards the river.

Walking through snow is like ink on paper: easy to read, easy to follow. Jonas stopped abruptly as the first guttural moans hit his ears. Fuck. His hand was already on the sword hilt, waiting for instructions. Not again.

The moans came again, turning to almost a bray as the goatmen doubled their speed. The sword glided from its sheath and Jonas put his back to a nearby tree. Okay, at least three this time. They’re close, must’ve shadowed me all the way from town. He did a quick assessment, free hand clutching the strap of his pack as the kitchen table of his mind was hurriedly wiped clean. I can outrun them if I leave the pack, but then they’ll take all the provisions. Just like last time. I can’t let this become a habit or we’ll run out of money before the thaw. The sword’s clean steel was the answer, he nodded with regret.

Jonas let the pack fall gently to the ground at the base of the tree and turned to face his enemies. He took the hilt in both hands and adopted an aggressive stance, blade held low. The goatmen tumbled into the clearing a half-breath later, snow churning explosively in their wake. The largest Jonas recognized by his wide black horns and the brutal looking wooden spoon that he carried in one hand -suitable to stir a giant’s vegetable soup. He had fled before, inches from the utensil. The other two goatmen were smaller, only small horn nubs on their brow – one carried a dagger, the other a broken trumpet – the music long since smashed out of it by violent employ. The trio slowed, seeing the sword in Jonas’ hands. The largest goatman spread his arms wide and gave a final screaming moan of triumph.

“Well, good day to you sir,” the largest goatman scratched the hairs of his mantee with amusement, “I’m terribly sorry, but we’ve decided to rob you this fine afternoon. Would you be so kind as to fuck right off?”

The smaller goatmen tittered, the trumpet bearer apparently flustered by the strong language used.

“You three got names?” Jonas asked, sword and hands waiting.

“Why would we share our names with—” the smallest goatman jabbed the air with his dagger in consternation.

“Yes, yes, it does seem a bit out of procedure,” the largest goatman talked over the smaller, “Why, good sir, would you be concerned with our identities at this unfortunate juncture?”

Jonas smiled, “I like to know who I’m fighting. And maybe you would like to know…who you’re fighting?”

Yeah, this is totally working. Look at them, maybe I can bluff them down!

“Well, who are we fighting then?” the goatman chuckled.

Okay, make this sound good. “I’m Jonas of Gilead, Squire. I’ve been trained by the best, faced wonders – uh, well – all sorts of weird shit! And lived to tell the tale! This sword? This sword right here? I call it my ‘good steel’ because it’s so good…at stealing lives.”

Perfect!!! Jonas fought with every fiber in his being to not drop his stance and give himself a solid pat on the back.

The goatmen laughed. They laughed and laughed, hands on knees – spit and tears running down their faces. Jonas sighed. Okay, that didn’t exactly work. But–

The squire’s hands and blade moved and his body followed. He focused on the smaller two opponents first. Less dangerous, but more unpredictable – remove from the board. He smashed the hilt of the sword into the first goatman’s teeth and kicked him hard in the chest, the dagger went spinning off into the snow. Before the second could react he stabbed his blade mightily into the damaged tubing of the trumpet. He ripped the instrument free with a smooth motion, then checked his shoulder hard into the second goatman’s chest, sending him to the ground. Jonas had just enough time to shake the trumpet free off into the tree line before a large wooden spoon collided with his shins. Not fast enough, okay fall with the momentum!

The squire hit the snowy ground hard, then rolled like a sausage down the hill and out of the spoon’s reach. The goatman’s hooves were loud and fast, Jonas clambered up getting his sword up just in time to block the next spoonbeat.

“You are making me quite angry, young man,” the goatman spat out the words then raised the spoon high.

Jonas clawed the snow and dirt out of his face and felt his heartbeat thud. Time slowed to a crawl and the squire watched his hands and sword move on their own. A high block, the goatman’s culinary club coming down hard on the steel, a tiny slice forming in the handle where sword met spoon. Thud. The goatman pushed down hard, the cut widened – a tiny canyon. He watched his left hand let go and snake out to grab the wide flange of the spoon. His right hand and shoulder howled with the sudden task of holding off the goatman unbalanced. What…what am I doing–? The squire pushed up with his right hand and sword and pulled down with his left holding the spoon.

The spoon snapped in half with a satisfying snap.

All at once time, his mind, and the horrible enraged cry of the goatman arrived together. Reveling in the small wonder his sword and hands had just performed, but knowing the danger remained he backed down the small hill a few paces and brought himself into a classic guard position.

“You! You!–” the goatman waved the remaining handle of the spoon in utter apoplexy. Then tossed aside the useless piece of wood lowered its long black horns toward the retreating squire and charged, howling anew.

Crap. Jonas felt his feed slide in the snow, the small incline behind him making his footing unsure. No other way! He couldn’t safely dodge or tumble away so he was left with only one simple, albeit ludicrous tactical option. The squire did his best to dig his heels into the earth below the snow and readied himself to block goatman with longsword. He turned his blade flat towards the onrushing horns.

Steel met horns, scraping along the crenelations, the flat of the blade slapped against the goatman’s forehead. Perf—ow! The horns were longer than Jonas had estimated and the points lodged uncomfortably an inch or two into his chest. He turned the sword hard to the left, hoping to make enough of a brace to wrench himself free. The goatman howled and pawed at his cloak to force the squire closer.

“Grrrrr!” the squire grrrd.

“Worrowlllwwwweee”, the goatman worrowllwwweeed.

The two other goatmen, the pine trees, and the snow were all treated to a long protracted moment as each foe tensed and found new syllables to mouth. Then all at once, there was a brittle snap, unassuming and trite like a twig underfoot. The two flew apart in a sudden rush of released energy and effort, spinning and falling face down into the snow.

Jonas was the first to pop up, already hustling up the small hill to the more even ground atop. He turned and readied his guard again, leaving the new snow and dirt on his face where it was.

The goatmen were laughing. All three, laughing and pointing at him.

He looked down at himself, two spots of red blood were blossoming on his chest. Ohh, that’s gonna hurt real bad real soon. But why are they–?! Then he saw it. Or rather he didn’t see it. The blade of his sword was gone. A hilt and three sad inches of steel were all that remained. The break was clean.

My sword is broken. The thoughts landed on his kitchen table mind like pebbles – clattering then laying still.

lines in the sand

May 25, 2018 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

lines in the sand

drawing them in circles around me

riddles and shapes of song

lines in the sand

can’t live in this invisible country

water’s rising, won’t be long

how can

I live

in just

a moment?

no one

will know.

waiting

to forget.

lines in the sand

promises are breaking like the waves

i speak and then i’m gone

time in my hand

books of me cry out from pages

i don’t trust any one

how can

i be

only

a moment?

you are

not me,

but wearing

my jacket.

lines in the sand

circles fading, draw them again

water and night will prove

lines in the sand

memory is a fool again

—

I have something to tell you.

November 1, 2017October 31, 2017 G. Derek Adams5 Comments

Writing Update

September 17, 2017February 21, 2018 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Over the past year, friends and acquaintances will ask me ‘ So, how’s the writing going, Derek???’. I usually grimace and give some sort of a half-answer. I sat down today to write a seven-eighths answer, and this is what I wrote.

A traveler came to a city on the edge of a forest. The windows were dark, the chimneys were cold, the few people he passed had empty faces and sharp teeth. This was a place where Hunger wed Time, and he could see that soon their vicious children would be born. He had no wish to enter this city, but his shoes carried him down into its red tile streets all the same.

The traveler carried with him a box — a box wrapped three times in cords of silver. He did not know what was inside. Along the path, next to fire and under the moon he had told himself many times what the treasure might be. He knew it was no heavier than so, no more fragile than so – but the silver cord was wound too tight for even the tiniest peek at the contents.

A long time ago perhaps, he had promised to carry the box to the city. Of that he was sure. But as Night gave slaughter to a legion of days, the rest of his charge had grown hazy. Was he to give the box to someone? Was he to perform some task with it? Were there other preparations he had needed before arriving at the city? He did not know, was not sure if he had ever known. Only the familiar weight of the box in his pack, only the road blooming in front of his feet, only the city waiting on the edge of a forest.

He wandered up and down a few streets, uncertain. Fewer and fewer people could be seen – and those he did see were walking knives. The sun was dying, so he hurried on. He found an abandoned house on the end of a narrow street and slipped inside. He laid out his bedroll in what must have once been the dining room of the house. He ate a few meager bites of his provisions and listened to the wind hoping it would have some suggestions.

The traveler went to sleep, his pack and the silver-wound box tight in his arms.

In the dark he dreamed of nothing, the lonely house swaying in the wind.

He awoke and his arms were wrapped around nothing. His pack was gone and the box.

The traveler cried out in fear, then in anger. He ran to the door, the morning sun beaming down on him and an empty street. Not even stopping to retrieve his meager bed roll he ran out into the city. Up and down streets, past empty buildings and broken windows. He saw no one. Not even the few hollow people that he had seen the night before: the city was empty. Nothing but red tile streets and shattered doors and the sound of his feet hitting the ground. He ran for hours, until at last simple exhaustion brought him to a halt.

The traveler sat on the edge of a dry fountain and felt the sun’s heat. His charge was gone, he was alone, and there was no one to explain. He groaned into his hands and took a long breath.

After a time, the traveler stood. He took one last look around and then shrugged. It took him some time but he retraced his steps to the abandoned house where he had slept and found his bedroll tangled and waiting. He folded it carefully and slung it over his shoulder – it was all he had left to carry. Taking a loose nail from a broken cross-beam he took a few minutes to scratch his name on the outside of the front door.

Then he shut it behind him and walked out of the city, beyond the city. Into the dark forest, the road blooming underneath his feet.

What Writers Want

February 23, 2017 G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

An incomplete list.

More time.
More words that are interesting but aren’t too iridescent or macabre.
For the shape in here to be the shape in there. For somehow you to see what we see.
Less names or better names.
Temporal vortex to skip to when the thing is done.
More minotaurs.
For it to matter.
You waking up in the middle of the night, the solution to our riddle hot in your brain.
You waking up in the middle of the night, knowing our heroes are with you and feeling warded.
You waking up in the middle of the night, knowing our monsters are in you and feeling alone.
Characters that follow the script would be too much to ask, but perhaps characters that would at least be willing to explain WHY they just blew up half your novel.
A writer you revere to look up from your pages with wonder.
A writer you hate to look up from your pages with despair.
Less gerunds.
An owl that whispers punchy dialogue to you.
To know – really know – that this sentence is good.
Bad reviews to be punished by that reviewer receiving only their least favorite jelly bean flavor. Forever.
To briefly escape the knowledge that it’s always getting away from us, that we’re never quite catching it, that the faster we type the more certain the end of the sentence will never, ever be true.
Less words. (if there were less, we’d be better at picking the right ones)

Accountability

January 31, 2017 G. Derek Adams2 Comments

I want my art to do more for the people, causes, and country that I care about. And as much as I earnestly believe in the power of any art to shape the world – I also know that direct action is also required. Protest, dialogue, education – and donation. We’re 10 days in and a lot of righteous war chests are going to need our coin to battle all this goddamn evil.

Effective immediately, I pledge to donate all of my 2017 royalties from my novel Asteroid Made of Dragons to the following:

I believe in the rule of law, I believe in the duty of the Fourth Estate. I believe in organizations that shield the defenseless. I believe in women AND health care AND allowing them to easily be in the same room without oversight. I do not believe that His Excellency’s administration will serve or protect the common good, so all of us need to pick up the slack as best we can. And arm the defenders of decency and justice.

Whatever royalties I receive on AMOD this year I’m going to evenly divide between these four groups. Like most authors I receive royalties once every quarter, I’ll post here when I get the next one in April. Now, I ain’t no Stephen King – these aren’t going to be big numbers even as I start to really flog the book in the next few months. But ‘what a person can do, a person ought to do’ as Antigone said.

If you are a supporter of His Excellency and his administration and goals – and this means you won’t buy my book or anything else I ever write – that is perfectly acceptable to me.

It doesn’t matter where you buy the book, the royalties will still come to me and get funneled to these organizations I want to support. Paperback, ebook, doesn’t matter.

Purchase direct from my publisher. (Paperback and all ebook formats, DRM free.)