By Jason Ritchey, news correspondent
Dark figures walk onto the small studio stage. Third year theatre major Floris Liu, covered in ghostly facepaint, begins singing a haunting tune – a converted chorus speech – before Antigone (senior theatre major Toni Oggioni), runs out to greet her sister Ismene (junior theatre major Jillian Goeler). With blonde dreadlocks trailing down her back, Oggiono cries out her first angsty lines of the Sophocles’ Greek classic “Antigone,” Northeastern Theatre Department’s first production of the semester.
“We’re taking this ancient Greek tragedy but interpreting it in a completely different way,” Oggioni said. “It’s tribal inspired, we’re taking it back to the elements: fire, water, earth, wood… It’s so relatable, we’re using a modern translation, and with the tribal side there are dreadlocks and face tattoos–kinda crazy.”
One of the three Theban plays by Sophocles, “Antigone,” the third chronologically (following “Oedipus the King” and “Oedipus at Colonus”), begins after the civil war between Oedipus’ two sons, Eteocles and Polynices.
“Creon, their uncle, is stepping in to be the new ruler,” Oggioni said. “He pronounces that Eteocles, who was fighting for the city, will be buried with honor, but Polynices will be left unburied. Antigone decides that she will be the one to honor her brother by burying him, but by doing so she goes against her uncle’s edict, meaning she’s to be stoned to death.”
Although “Antigone” is conventionally performed in a large amphitheatre, director Antonio Ocampo-Guzman explained that this production would be different.
“We’re doing a whole bunch of things to augment the size in our small setting – working with sound and staging,” he said.
But as Oggiono explained, that’s not the only difference in staging.
“It’s a very physical show,” Oggioni said. “There’s gravel on the ground, no 90 degree angles, no even ground. We talk to the audience a lot. The physical factor is big, we have a fall in one scene where I fall off the stairs into eight men’s arms, hoping they catch me.”
And that’s without mentioning the inspiration of the production. The unconventional approach, Ocampo-Guzman explained, came to him in a movie theater.
“What I did not want to do was put on a play that would look like a ‘Greek theater’ production. No togas, because what’s the point?” Ocampo-Guzman said. “The tribal idea came because even for the classical Greeks, this story was ancient. I happened to watch ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ and I liked the idea that even primates were able to create society–so I wanted to observe that proto society.”
The unconventional take on a classic story came as a welcome surprise to some of the audience members.
“I was expecting people in togas to come out, it was very interesting and made the story more engaging,” Hannah Bryla, junior political science major, said.
Oggioni admits that the approach was slightly daunting at first and still keeps the cast awake.
“In our rehearsals, and now in our performances, little is set in what we’re going to do,” she said. “Even the five-member chorus, who has all the same lines [as each other], take on different lines [on] different nights. Every time you see it it’ll be a different show. We’re kinda taking away from traditional theatre and doing it our own way, which is an awesome feeling.”
Both she and Ocampo-Guzman emphasized that the show is relatable and compelling.
“Antigone is a rebel,” Oggioni said. “She loves her family and she believes strongly in what she believes is right, which is something I admire in her and hope to incorporate into my own life.”
She continued to explain how she was able to relate to her character because of her body.
“I’m a plus-sized woman and it’s sometimes hard to fit into the ‘normal’ societal pressures,” Oggioni said. “Antigone comes as an outcast and isn’t accepted as normal too [sic] but it’s because she doesn’t care what people think of her and wants to be surrounded by love instead of hate.”
Bryla enjoyed the juxtaposition of modern-day themes with the overarching tribal tone. Like Oggioni, she particularly connected with the show’s portrayal of women.
“It took the play out of the ancient context and made it applicable to a modern audience,” she said. “I’ve always found the story of ‘Antigone’ compelling and I feel like the themes it discusses — like women’s equality and rebelling against corruption — are always and have always been relevant.”
Ocampo-Guzman stresses how the story lends itself to the accessibility of the show.
“George Steiner wrote a wonderful study about the myth of Antigone,” he said. “[Steiner] said that what’s fascinating is that though it’s short, it contains the five main conflicts that humans have to face in life, between young and old; men and women; individual and the state; mortals and immortals; and living and dead.”
The goal, he said, is “hopefully when people come to see it they won’t think they’re watching a museum piece of Greek tragedy, but rather a compelling theatrical event.”
Antigone runs Oct. 14-26. Tickets and showtimes are available on myNEU.
Photo by Maria Amasanti, Northeastern University
