Antigone
“Scream what you’ll never face. Scream what you can’t even imagine exists. Don’t expect it to do any good; you know better than that. Scream those things for their own sake, and because if you scream them, you’ll learn from them.”
Antigone
By Jean Anouilh
Translated by Robertson Dean from Antigone by Sophocles
Adapted and Co-Directed by Matthew Greenberg
Co-Directed by Landee Lockhart
Scenic and Prop Design: Scott Tedmon-Jones
Lighting and Projection Design: Jason Banks
Costume Design: Jenny Foldenauer
Hair and Makeup Design: Kate Backman
Sound Design: Don Turner
Fight Choreography: Matthew Greenberg
Intimacy Directing: Landee Lockhart
Production Stage Manager: Kayla Lolio
Photos: Ted Drummond, University of Wyoming Institutional Marketing
What does it cost to be visible and who gets to take up space (or not) based on their identities?
Antigone was my first foray into directing at The University of Wyoming. I served as an adapter of the text from Jean Anouilh’s and Robertson Dean’s French and English translations, fight director, and co-director alongside my colleague, Professor Landee Lockhart….I like a grand entrance.
Antigone was a show that I pitched to the Department of Theatre and Dance community as a way of introducing my creative process to The University of Wyoming. As an adapter, I not only translated parts of the text, but also redistributed lines of text to give the female-identifying characters more autonomy of what they say. Likewise, I adapted the period and setting to take place at the base of the Wyoming’s Snowy Range Mountains in 1969’s Vietnam War Era.
Protests and counter-culture seemed to serve the story in new interesting ways. The Greek Chorus became two newscasters, one male and one female, playing into (and against) gender stereotypes while delivering the information to a small Wyoming town, much like the introduction of TV Media which played during the Vietnam War’s Tet Offense.
Albeit it set in period way, the location gave our audience familiarity and allowed them to draw clearer connections with the themes of gender equality, power, and law, that have many, many contemporary relevancies.
Working with my Viewpoints training, many moments were created using compositional themes. The elements of Wyoming (the wonderful beauty and bitter cold) were created by members of the ensemble. The play ended with an ensemble running circle as the wind, creating a legacy for Antigone of what she leaves behind.
I wanted to play into the who is visible by having a prop body of Polynices lay on stage throughout the duration of the performance, even at one point becoming impaired by Creon’s power of the law.
Antigone won the maximum seven Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region 7 awards that it was eligible for. Meritorious Achievement Awards were given for Scenic Design, Projection Design, Ensemble Cast (all eight actors), Director (Greenberg), Director (Lockhart), Irene Ryan Acting Nomination (Anna McClow as Antigone) and Irene Ryan Acting Nomination (Carson Almand as Creon).
