To Be Is to Die

JEAN ANOUILH'S Antigone, a recreation rather than an adaptation of the Sophocles myth, explores a profound moral struggle between two human wills. In the end, neither wins. The fundamental compromise demanded by life and the solitude of heroic individuals who choose to refuse it are brought to the surface in the questions asked about freedom and happiness. Stripping away the layers of reason, Anouilh forces us to look at the universal, to see man floundering in an apparently illogical universe, driven to question the worth of "accepted" values.

Antigone brings death upon herself as the only acceptable solution to life; only in its rejection can she be true to herself and her fierce idealism. The essential conflict burns in the confrontration between Antigone and her uncle Creon, the king, also an idealist but committed to a realistic acceptance of life's dilemmas. Just as he acknowledges yet still embraces the mediocrity of life, he offers to ignore Antigone's offense. So far is he from Antigone's youthful idealism that he fails at first to understand that her crime is motivated by nothing less than an overwhelming desire to die. Only after his duty as king has forced him to have her killed does he recognize that the absurdity of Antigone's reasoning was irrelevant. Even the crime was only a pretext, simply a means towards her final goal. Her role was to die.

The entire play turns upon the confrontation between these two universal forces, these archetypal symbols. And the most terrifying aspect of the struggle, brought out with an overpowering force and conviction in Alison Clarkson's production of the play, is that both protagonists are right. Antigone, the embodiment of the heroic will, hurtles towards death with a barely understood drive to express her personal freedom, while Creon is the human voice of reason assailing her with all the logic he can muster.

Corky McMinn as Antigone and Greg Hill as Creon draw out the unique strength of this drama. The central scene is built upon a union of dramatic and emotional rhythm controlled by the intense performances of these two actors. They have worked out a balance of forces between two equally credible characters faced with the impossibility of ever reconciling their respective ideals, their respective roles in the face of destiny. McMinn's Antigone is a vital mixture of woman and child, quivering with all the buried fears and desires which must be overcome in order to say no to life. Hill's Creon is all Anouilh intended--humane and aware that the course he took many years earlier, selflessly and in the interests of the state, is the compromise that his niece rejects. Not once does Hill allow his creon to cross the fine line into the despicable and thus distrub the precarious balance; throughout the play he inspires only the profoundest pity and sympathy in an audience that has came to know all too well the inevitable pathos of his predicament.

In the brightness of the two lead performances, the mediocrity of the supporting actors sheds dark shadows on the production. These actors are on a completely different level from McMinn and Hill, and the result is strange. Immersing oneself in the truths expressed by Anouilh and in the essential drama between Antigone and Creon, one almost forgets the presence of the other actors. For Anouilh's meaning is strong enough to transcend the weakness of the minor performers.

THE PRODUCER, Alison Clarkson, has clearly perceived and expressed the pure dramatic entity which is Antigone, binding together and bound with a classical simplicity, unity and harmony. The simple, symmetrical set, designed by Gary S. Gluck, is exploited to its full by Forrest Stone's lighting, which catches the most delicate mood and tone changes in the script. In one small shaft of light illuminating her and her captor, Antigone spends her last living moments with the guard who arrested her. Here she realizes that, after all, she no longer knows why she is dying. Thirty years ago, in February, 1944, Antigone appeared in Paris at the time of the German Occupation. Under the threat of air raid and without electricity, French audiences packed the Ate lier Theater night after night to see Anouilh's wife, Monelle Valentin, play Antigone in the small patch of light which crept through the stage's skylight. For in her struggle they saw reflected their own. Whereas Creon represented the Vichy government, Antigone was for them the spirit of freedom.