group thoughts and answers to questiions

the story synopsis At the start of the play the main character antigone learns that her brothers

killed each other in battle. ETeocles has been given a proper burial but her uncle and the new

ruler issued a royal edict banning her other brothers, Polyneices, burial. Antigone defies the

law and buries her brother, and then is caught. When Creon locks her away she kills herself.

Her fiance Haemon, Creons son, finds her and kills himself. Just as Creon finds out his son

died he is informed that his wife also killed herself. Creon is ultimately left in despair and srro

regretting his actions.

narrator:

Over the past few weeks we have been working on A greek tragedy called Antigone through

our project about historical context and multimedia. In our play we incorporate multimedia into

each scene whilst also working on the dramatic aspect behind Antone and how it links to life

today.

The piece is still relevant today because socially the matters that arise in the play are always

rooted in our society regardless of the era. Society goes in a constant cycle and only when we

bring different mediums into it (theatre) then we can escape it happening again by educating

everyone on the subjects and still keep that element of surprise in our piece.

We had a look at set design as part of looking at the context of our adaptation to a traditional

text of greek theatre antigone and at how we can make it relevant to life today by. in our set

design we discussed a range of lighting that could affect the mood of piece and how we could

portray a scene using minimal lighting and more of a multimedia setting of atmosphere.

Multimedia was huge part of our performance as without it we might not have had the same

affect on our audience that we did. For our play we used a variety of media to affect the mood

and atmosphere of each scene. We used lighting, music, live feed, videos and other mediums

to create our scenes. They really built onto the story and gave the audience the opportunity to

view the perspectives of the characters that a regular performance may not. It affected how

the audience saw them and their interpretations of the performance.

we could use levels and height to show status for example between Creon and Antigone and

how it could affect their relationship. This relates to life today as today status between higher

and lower class is less obvious however if teacher spoke to a teacher disrespectfully or went

against them then they would be punished accordingly just like antigone was. A teacher who

was taller or larger than their student would be more capable of asserting authority as they

would be looking down on the one who they’re punishing so thats why the higher and lower

levels are important. However in ancient greece they may not have had these options as their

technology and theatres were a lot less developed.

Many of the characters in the play relate to modern life today. The main character Antigone,

for example, shows many extreme characteristics of a feminist background and anarchical

behaviour. And especially today it relates to a major motion picture franchise called the

hunger games. A film in which the main character katniss everdeen also shows these traits

and has a very similar (almost identical) personality which furthers the point of being relevant

today. Both characters go against their government and fight for their lives against a political

power in a patriarchal society.

the play antigone was one of the first with a major female role that went against men as in that

time women were regarded as inferior to men and were not even allowed to view greek plays.

This shows a lot about how far women have come in terms of their rights and abilities (to do

certain thing), although in some parts of the world women still aren’t even allowed an

education. An example of this is a young girl Malala Yousafzai who was shot multiple times

just because she wanted an education. That’s why such pieces of theatre and films like the

hunger games and antigone are so important as they remind us that not everyone is as lucky

as us but we can (as actors and acxtresses) explore these themes and show a level of

maturity, sympathy and professionalism.

At the beginning of the play Antigone there was a war in which the main characters brothers

both died although they were on opposing sides of the war. This shows that even in Ancient

greece there were conflicts referring to who was in power. An example of how this relates to

modern life today is the current war in Afghanistan where one in seven children are dying

before the age of five, and landmines are littering the land, Afghanistan is one of the most

dangerous places to live. Our technology since ancient greece has come extremely far and so

have the weapons which have made war a lot more viscous, where as in ancient greece they

would not have iweapons and would have most likely fought with swords and knives. Although

today we don’t decide who’s in power through wars but through elections and democracy

although many could argue that our supposedly fair system has become corrupt. This links to

what has happened in afghanistan and ancient greece.

This play would have also been seen as quite controversial as it questions the authority of

those in power and also supports a leading female role. Another main part of the play is

religion as the whole play is based around Antigone’s faith towards the gods and her concrete

belief in an afterlife. Her actions (the burial of her brother) are all because she believes in the

fact that if she doesn’t do this then he will never pass on to the afterlife. In contrast to this

religion has a much smaller influence on people’s lives today as science has shown us that

many theories including religion are possible. Many people today are atheist’s which is where

they don’t believe in god at all, and in ancient greek times this would’ve been unheard of as it

was such a huge part in the way that people lived. However in the UK we are a lot more

culturally diverse so we’ve grown up with many religions such as christianity, judaism,

buddhism and islam and these can all affect whether we chose to become a theist, atheist, or

even agnostic. However in certain parts of the world many people would feel the same

towards their religious commitment as Antigone did, in places like the shaolin monastery, also

people who are trappist, even the terrorist group ISIS as they believe that what they are doing

is right as it is their faith.