Antigone for Fringe World
Earlier in the year the 12 ARTAR Drama class performed a version of Antigone as part of their required assessment. Over the course of 2020 I reworked the script and offered this class and some of our Alumni the opportunity to take this to Fringe for 2021 Festival if they were interested.
I have always wanted to do an adaptation of this Greek Trilogy. I wanted to give a voice to character’s previously silenced. In honouring the original text, this adaptation reveals part of the story I have wondered about for years, in truth I have felt great sympathy for Oedipus. He was the victim that bore the suffering for someone else, as does his daughter Antigone.
This year I was privileged enough to teach a particularly talented and committed group of Year 12 ATAR Drama students and I offered them the experience of going to Fringe 2021, where they are now Alumni as an experience that might help put right some of the difficulties, they have had this year, finishing school through a worldwide pandemic. I am pleased to say they were very excited and so throughout December and January we will be rehearsing for our first show for Season 2021 in the Maali Mia Theatre 2-6 February.
I hope it gives them something to look forward too. To do something different, especially since many won’t have the leavers experience either. They will perform in the 3rd largest Fringe Festival in the world as young emerging artist in their own right. I hope it gives them the confidence to begin the next part of their journey.
This is not a pleasant story. It is after all a tragedy, however, in this adaptation I have tried to contextualise the meaning of a young woman of faith who is disempowered by the system of her own country. That message is universal sadly, one that we cannot be reminded of enough. It is also a story about redemption and regret. When hubris ( pride) often forces us to hold on to long to ideas to our own detriment.
This is a gritty, confronting, passionate production, performed by some remarkable young people, who it has been my privilege to know and work with.
images by Jason Matz
