[Note: Patrick decided his review also needed another draft so this replaces the one published yesterday – ed.]  

In Sophocles’ original play Antigone goes against her uncle King Creon’s decree not to give funeral rights to her brother, who led a foreign army against their home of Thebes. She is imprisoned underground and hangs herself. Her love, Creon’s son, swears never to see his father again. Creon’s wife, on hearing what has occurred – which is against the advice of the blind seer Teiresias, that the gods have stopped hearing Thebes’ prayers – kills herself for this act of impiety (it is ungodly to put someone under the earth). Creon still rules but is now bereft of joy.

The play lives at the intersection of one’s duty to the crown/law and to religion. Antigone cannot live with herself while her brother is unable to rest in the afterlife due to no proper funereal rites.

The Antigone Sound is a new adaption by directors Heather Timms, Penny Fitt, Ana Chaya Scotney and Comfrey Sanders (I’m presuming here that one or more have translated from the original Greek as no translation is acknowledged). The story is mostly adhered to (except for Creon’s wife Eurydice) and the production is filled with responses to the work.

Set in the dark vastness of the Basement Theatre of Te Whaea and in the traverse, seating is central whilst action takes place along the traverse line from one end to the other. ‘The Antigone Sound’ is writ large on one wall and actors move like twitching puppets behind the seating blocks as we enter. It seems like a mix of dance rave moves and the kind of evocation dance used to fill the actors with the spirit of Dionysus prior to performance.

Thomas Lambert’s sound design is a reverberant industrial thrum which creates a dense atmosphere of foreboding; Charley Draper’s projection design is an installation of sparks, blackness and static; the Chorus and Teiresias greet us with soundings. There is a lot to see, hear and feel.

And so the play and the production unfolds. Within the design elements, the English text is a mix of the play, spoken subtext and additional contextual monologue. Sometimes there is a sense of the classic ‘Greek drama’ and sometimes the feel of a free flow, beat poetry. Stories of people in similar distress, accompanied by literal projections of their locations from around the world, are declaimed.

The Chorus or The Ate (Summer Millett, Sophie Wright and Te Puawaitanga Winterburn) interweave song, sound and movement at heightened moments. Their movements, which include Māori, Pasifika and Balinese dance motifs, are precise, matching the beauty of their singing which ranges similarly. Dressed (Fiona Grove and Michaela Stewart are credited as ‘costume coordination’) in earth tones and confined by red swathes (which later create some resonant Greek-style statues), they stand out against such a dark background. They are styled as “three icons of mischief, delusion, ruin and folly” and seemingly swing allegiances as they see fit.

The central plot is carried by Acacia O’Connor (Antigone), Lutz Hamm (Kreon), Ariaana Osborne (Antigone’s sister Ismene) and Richard MacDonald (Haimon) with Luke Baker (the blind Teiresias) and Raai Badeeu (Watcher: Fence-sitter). I have to admit to failing to see the point of the Watcher – is the character supposed to represent Koryphaios, the King’s advisor in the original? Badeeu, clearly doing as much as he can here, seems to fill in characters as needed.

Baker’s Teiresias, dressed in tepid beige with frighteningly vivid, Egyptionesque eyes, watches from his pool life-saver seat. The blind one who sees all from an elevated, distanced position – yup, got it – comes down from his high horse to berate Kreon in a very stylised manner, further removing him from the ordinary. In the context of modern dress this behaviour is odd, but strikingly bold. In a sense he seems a catalyst: untouched and unchanged by the reaction around him.  

I’ll come straight to the point: I have a problem with some aspects of the production.

I’ve seen some of these talented young actors before, but here they are each playing one major note with little variation. Kreon, the man/king who must employ a steel hand to ensure order after civil war, is presented addressing Thebes via the screen and projection for the audience to see. (I’m not sure why we see Haimon dressing from a previous scene and can only think this is an opening night booboo.) Here Kreon is calm, authoritative and lacking charisma; he’s a warrior taking control and perhaps not a diplomat. This strength is carried right through the rest of the play, up until his denouement. The effect is jarring at points.

During his confrontation with Antigone and with Haimon, Kreon’s text is mostly stately in style but more and more becomes colloquial, almost sub-textually so, as his arguments continue. And as it careens between these styles like a pinball any chance of emotional undertones are lost. The problem is that this passage, the monologue and specifically the delivery, is maintained for so long it loses its effect.

Antigone and Kreon end up in pretty much a shouting match. After a while patrons on the other side of the theatre disengage and leave them to sort it out. The text could be clearer and more pointed with the articulation and build.

It seems churlish to say, but when the actor is directed to show internal conflict/ pain by running through water from one side of a set to another, banging into each building wall, this becomes mundane and could become far stronger through the use of duration and build.  The people to my left are more concerned he is going to slip and hurt himself.  

Antigone is certainly a force to be reckoned with: she is strong, mature and determined. With her lover, Haimon, she shows her softer side. O’Connor and McDonald work particularly well off each other, but even in this scene the moment she sniffs anyone getting her off track she returns to single-mindedness. This may be a problem in the original: she certainly has her mind made-up, and I’m not looking to ‘soften’ the female character. My point is that, given this is modern dress, there is far more room in the script for a wider point of view allowing O’Connor to shine.

Ismene, the younger sister, doesn’t possess her sibling’s determination but is loyal to the end. In the original she is the ‘more beautiful, pliant’ daughter and acts as an early counterpoint to Antigone. O’Connor and Osborne play a lovely scene in the dark with candles – Antigone wanting to collude and Ismene all reticence – each character using matches to light the scene (Light Design is uncredited). This creates a dynamic setting but (and this was confirmed talking with punters after) the scene becomes a game of keeping the match alive. So much so that Osborne’s frustration comes out in an improvised line, “Damn these bloody matches!” which gets a laugh.

MacDonald’s Haimon seems to be the only one who is more rounded, providing more dimensionality to his character. He really comes alive in his confrontation with Kreon, the words and movements rising organically with his arguments; his sauciness when flirting with Antigone. The text being created from the original story, modern phrasing and what seem to be self-written moments, are dulled rather than illuminated by the playing. It feels like a dry story, when the Greek originals and other modern translations brim with life and heightened emotions. There are flashes of difference in moments from the others and that, I realise, is what I’m left with: moments.

Moments such as the Ate in perfect motion and gorgeous harmony; Teiresias’ falsetto echoing high above us; the slamming of rhythmic bursts of sound in moments of Kreon’s self-reasoning monologue; the Ate standing like Greek sculptures on stools as they release their costumes. I get the feeling that, with all the input, each aspect of design and performance is a grouping of responses to the story and text. It hangs together because of the story being presented in linear fashion but, as a whole, it is still stepped back from the audience. The emotion behind what is presented may be inside this production but it is not apparent to the audience.

Being an acting school production, I find it hard to believe their investigations may not have included Sacha Waltz’s Medea which appeared here last year in the International Festival and is available online.

Being in traverse can be a blessing and a curse, and in this case it is easy to see patrons disengaging.

Lambert’s sound design is pretty much constant which allows it to sit under and highlight scenes (the aforementioned ‘Kreon moments’ are riveting), but when combined with the Ate it is difficult to hear any text. The lights utilised in this space lack innovation, given the range and depth given to other design elements.

The set (again uncredited apart from construction by Will Smith) is simple: black curtains behind a monitor to one end; a simple rectangle space between our traverse seating which sees the chalking of a rectangle which the Watcher avoids stepping on but seems to be no problem for other characters. What is the rule here? Is this a room? A boxing ring? A space for confrontation? It is left unclear and hard to detect its purpose, other than to have the names of the three young people written into it – again, to what purpose?

The costumes work wonderfully well for the Ate – keeping them separate and Chorus like; for the rest of the company’ in modern dress: blue and black for the reigning family with the striking red for the outsider, Antigone, linking her to the Ate. They look impeccable, as if they’ve all come nice from the dry cleaners, like any opening night. And this is my lasting impression of this production: it looks amazing and clean and nice.

If this company, and specifically its directors, are responding “to now and the beautiful and painful fallibility”, then simply projecting visions of civil war-torn Syriah because you’re set in civil war-torn Thebes doesn’t provide us with a visceral evening; we are adept at seeing these images on Twitter. This response needs to be bolder and more personal in this world for us to connect with this story.

I feel disconnected to any risk the characters are involved in. I feel disconnected to what this play may be trying to say about the here and now. At any Drama School that looks to create meaningful work by its artists, and especially a production that is led by practitioners who teach at that institution, I expect entry to and elucidation of the piece. I feel that the makers get more out of this process than the audience and thereby miss an opportunity to speak to matters happening right now in our political/religious world.

The directors need to take this one on the chin. It certainly worries me when I read, “This is our first go” in the programme. This work needs more drafts.

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