Backstage Perspective:
D-E’s Adaptation of Antigone Aims to Be Timeless

Selecting Antigone, the Greek tragedy written by Sophocles around 441 BC, as D-E’s Upper School Fall Play was a collaborative effort. History Teacher Ben Fleisher, who teaches the text from Antigone to his Upper School classes, had approached the former director of performing arts, Paul Tines, about producing a version of the play for his students. Since the play was coincidentally already on the shortlist of potential fall plays compiled by Upper School Theater Director Robert Murphy, the team decided to move forward with this selection.

“ will be an extreme ensemble piece.”
-Mr. Murphy

“It’s a story that intrigued me,” says Mr. Murphy of Antigone, which is the second oldest play by Sophocles for which the text survived the ages. He also appreciated the connection it has to democracy, especially in this election year.

Many years ago Mr. Murphy watched a TED Talk with Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director at the Public Theater in New York City, during which he discussed how theater was invented in Greece. The takeaway was that theater is an act of democracy by virtue of its format of actors displaying different viewpoints up on stage.

Another appeal was the fact that although Mr. Murphy, in his words, has directed a ton of contemporary and Shakespearean works, he had never directed a Greek play.

In the ancient depiction, a war-torn town is further divided when the title character wants to bury her brother Polynices, who was killed in a battle for the throne against her other brother, Eteocles, and is punished in death by the ruler Creon by being denied the holy rites of burial.

“Antigone is about one girl standing up for what she knows is right at the highest cost possible.” – Ms. Miller

“Antigone and Creon are co-protagonists,” says Mr. Murphy, “with Antigone standing by her morals and beliefs, and Creon standing by the law that he set down.” Both strongly believe that their individual choices are the correct ones.

Mr. Murphy says he read several different versions of the script and landed on a modern adaptation that could accommodate the nine students in the relatively young cast of four ninth graders, three tenth graders, and two seniors.

“ will be an extreme ensemble piece,” he says. It will feature Chorus voices serving as narrators, including characters the director created that represent the Goddess of War, the Spirit of Hope, and the Spirit of Wonder.

“The Chorus is the driving force of what is happening and directly interacts with the audience by asking a lot of questions of them,” Mr. Murphy explains. “The teaching moments for the cast include understanding the motivations of the characters—why are they saying what they’re saying and what’s the subtext?” In Greek tragedies, the heroes always have a flaw, so what are the fears that lead to the downfall of the character(s)?

Once the cast was selected, the director started working with his team to build out his vision for Antigone. During early conversations with D-E’s Dean of Performing Arts, Adam Slee, Mr. Murphy noticed mannequins with contorted limbs onstage and was inspired to work these into the production.

“This is a timeless story,” says Mr. Murphy… “Antigone has been produced in many ways, all over the world. I expect the audience, because we’re breaking the fourth wall, to feel included.”

His idea was to have the student actors begin their scenes as part of the audience, and then break through the proverbial fourth wall to walk onstage, remove the clothing from the mannequins, put them on, and transform into those roles, reflecting the views of the silent Chorus he created.

In terms of setting, there will be no revealing of a specific time or place. “Caitie Miller, the Technical Director, and I were talking about designs, and we were inspired by images that looked like a burned-out library in Serbia,” says Mr. Murphy. “We were drawn to the feeling of this thematically—a city destroyed by civil war.”

“Antigone is about one girl standing up for what she knows is right at the highest cost possible,” explains Ms. Miller. “It’s also a story about faith and how her faith comes in conflict with the State; We wanted to create a world that shows that tension.”

As such, she adds, the set design will show destruction—cathedrals and other structures in ruins—as well as a symbolic destroying of faith.

“There will be a lot of rubble,” says Ms. Miller, who leads an after-school stage crew that includes Upper School students as well as 7th and 8th graders. The student crew will literally hit props with hammers to get them to look like remnants of war, create rubble from pieces of foam, and add layers of paint to wooden boards to resemble distressed stone.

As for the wardrobe selections, D-E Costume Director, Eileen Lynch, says the undefined place and time “allows for the inclusion of a mixture of eras and styles to evoke the themes.” 

“The ones I pulled for consideration include a number of military-style jackets from different periods… to symbolically link that war has been a timeless problem for humans… from ancient times to the present,” says Ms. Lynch.

She adds that the costume pieces will be a collection of “found” items, both in the rubble of the war-torn environment and hanging on the statues in the environment.

“This is a timeless story,” says Mr. Murphy, in response to what he thinks the audience will take away from the play. “Antigone has been produced in many ways, all over the world. I expect the audience, because we’re breaking the fourth wall, to feel included.”

Additionally, he adds, the idea of a silent Chorus seeing injustice and saying nothing becomes a metaphor that stands the test of time and may be why this story still resonates with an audience today.

Friday, November 8, 7:00 PM

(Opening night with a reception to follow)