Plays 52 - Antigone by Sophocles

3. Antigone - Sophocles

Set entirely at the palace of Thebes, 'Antigone' is the third part of Sophocles' Oedipus saga.  It concerns itself with the fate of Oedipus' children; his daughters Antigone and Ismene, his sons Eteocles and Polynices.  Just before the start of the play, Oedipus' son Eteocles was defending the city of Thebes against his brother, Polynices who was leading a revolt against it, both having killed each other in battle.  The new king of the city, Creon, declares that Eteocles is to be given a full burial with state honours but the rebellious brother Polynices is to be left unburied as carrion.  Creon is accompanied throughout the play by a Chorus of city elders who act as his conscience.

Bound by a sense of familial honour, Oedipus' daughter Antigone vows to bury her brother Polynices in bold defiance of Creon's orders.  Ismene, who is Antigone's sister, begs her not to defy Creon's will or at least to do so covertly, however Antigone rejects Ismene's pleas and goes to carry out the burial.  Antigone feels betrayed by Ismene, who clearly wants to help her sister but is too fearful to do so.

As is customary in Greek theatre, a messenger arrives to relay the events which have taken place elsewhere, in this case one of the sentries ordered by Creon to guard the body of the dishonoured.  He is in fear for his life as he informs the king that the body has been partially buried, fearing the king will hold him responsible.  However, Creon sends the sentry back to unbury the body and keep watch, should the criminal return. 

Shortly afterwards, the sentry returns with Antigone, who has been caught in the act of reburying her brother.  She is unrepentant and defiant against the king, stating that she considers familial honour more important than the word of the king.  Her defiance angers Creon and he sentences her to imprisonment in a sealed cave, with just enough food to survive should she wish to do so. 

Haemon, Creon's son who is betrothed to Antigone, arrives to plead with his father not to punish her rashly and to try to understand her position.  Haemon also suggests that the citizens of Thebes admire Antigone, yet are too fearful of Creon to admit it.  Creon will give no quarter though and insists that he will not be swayed by a woman, or by "women's law".  Haemon leaves, heartbroken, with a very thinly veiled threat to take his own life if Antigone should perish.

Teiresias, a blind prophet and long time advisor to the kings of Thebes, now tries to persuade Creon to change his mind.  He has had a disturbing vision of warring birds and a sacrifice spurned by the gods, angered as they are by Creon's pride.  Creon is shaken enough by this to reluctantly go back on his word.  He sets off, at the insistence of the chorus, to bury the body of Polynices and to free Antigone.

A little while later, another messenger enters to explain what has happened.  Creon and his sentries managed to burn the body on a pyre and bury the ashes, but were too late in freeing Antigone.  Haemon is already there and she has hung herself.  Creon attempts to calm Haemon but he lunges at his father with a sword, Creon avoids this but then Haemon impales himself in the side, unable to bear life without Antigone.

Back at the palace Creon's wife, Eurydice, hears the news of her son's death and Creon's part in it then leaves in ominous silence.  Creon returns to the palace, crestfallen, and just as he thinks things cannot get any worse, he discovers that his wife has killed herself.  Creon takes full responsibility for the deaths as if he himself had cast the deadly blows.

Plays 52 - Communicating Doors by Alan Ayckbourn

2. Communicating Doors - Alan Ayckbourn

Communicating Doors is a two-act play set in a sixth floor suite of a five-star London hotel room and takes place over three distinct time periods of the room, namely; 1974, 1994 and 2014.  The play is essentially a comedy about redemption and putting right a past shaped by one man's greed and another's amorality.

It is 2014 and Julian Goodman, the business associate of Reece Welles, is alone in the suite waiting for a prostitute who has been summoned by Reece.  Goodman casts an imposing figure in comparison to Reece, a rather frail seventy year-old.  The prostitute, ashamed of her real name, Phoebe, goes by the name Poopay Dayseer (Poupée Désire), arrives and once she and Reece are alone together, it is revealed that he wants her to witness a signed confession.  The confession, which directly implicates Goodman in the murders of Reece's two ex-wives, is then to be delivered by hand to Reece's solicitor; the one in the firm that he still trusts at any rate.  However, before Poopay can deliver the confession, she is discovered by Julian.  Hiding the confession inside the suite's bidet, she flees and discovers an 'intercommunicating door' which leads to the same hotel suite, albeit twenty years earlier, in 1994.

Ruella, whom it is previously established is Reece's second wife, is in her suite alone and looking forward to a good night's sleep upon the younger Reece's return from a business trip to Greece.  Ruella finds Poopay and assumes that she is either in shock or on some kind of drugs and calls for hotel security, a man named Harold Palmer, to have her removed.  It turns out that the night that Poopay/Phoebe has returned is the very night that Julian has planned to "accidentally" bundle Ruella out of the sixth floor window, a fact specified in the confession.  Ruella not only absorbs the fact that Poopay is actually from the future, but emerges as the driving force behind a plan to prevent her own death and that of Reece's first wife, Jessica, in 1981, which is also revealed in the confession .  Ruella is also able to travel back in time through the communicating door, to 1974 where a much younger Reece is honeymooning with the aforementioned Jessica.  Meanwhile, Julian from 2014 has also discovered the communicating door, travelled back to 1994 and has Poopay cornered in the bathroom.

The confession has been relayed back via Poopay and Ruella, and is now in the hands of Jessica in 1974, who is extremely sceptical.  However, it has piqued her curiosity enough for her to allow Ruella to explain.  Jessica herself is extremely understanding, despite the unusual circumstances and assumes Ruella to be mad, although enough of a doubt has been sown in her mind that she accepts and keeps another note, written and handed to Jessica with some urgency by Ruella, with strict instructions to be opened the following year.  This note is to be opened on the day following the birth of Jessica and Reece's daughter Rachel, and correctly predicts the name and weight of the child, thus going some way to proving Ruella's authenticity.

When Ruella returns to her present, she finds the room in darkness and is instantly concerned for Poopay's wellbeing.  The latter emerges from the bedroom, visibly distressed.  It turns out that in attempting to drown Poopay, Julian had slipped on a bar of soap and cracked his head against the toilet killing him.  In a panic, Poopay had dragged his body and hidden it under the sofa.  At this point, Ruella enlists the help of the older Harold (hotel security), to make Julian's death seem more of an accident.  As Harold and Poopay are placing Julian's body in another hotel room, the realisation dawns to both her and Ruella that the Julian of 1994 is still alive and well and about to descend. 

At this point Jessica, having been saved by the foreknowledge of her death at Julian's hand in 1981, emerges from the communicating door to find Ruella wrapped in a bed sheet, with Julian about to throw her out of the window.  However, Jessica has not come from another time, but from the empty room next door.  Pretending to be the ghost of Julian's mother, whom he had also dispensed with, she shocks him enough that he staggers back and falls off the balcony - the fate he had intended for Ruella.  Much physical comedy ensues as Jessica attempts to release Ruella,  but unfortunately Ruella is propelled backwards and over the balcony.  It is at this point that Poopay returns from the other room and quickly grabs the remaining end of the bed sheet with Jessica, and the three women work together to heave Ruella back to safety.

As well as Jessica surviving and going on to marry a count, Rachel is now studying at Cambridge rather than in America, as she was originally.  The body of Julian from 2014 has also vanished, as he has now perished in 1994.  Ruella rewards Harold for all his help with the promise of the yacht that he's always dreamed of.  All seemingly well, and as Jessica leaves, so Ruella and Poopay are left to ruminate on the future, Poopay reluctant to return to it.  Poopay, it seems, did not have a pleasant upbringing.  She was brought up in a children's home with no knowledge of her parents or of a 'normal' life.  An idea seems to occur to Ruella as Poopay goes to leave and they agree, at Poopay's insistence, to meet up the following day, in the future.  Upon returning to 2014, Poopay finds herself changed; her own voice surprises her and she is now called Phoebe once again.  It turns out that Ruella has been able to dramatically alter her life by adopting her and therefore preventing her from falling into the life she had before.  She now has a family of her own and also a good job.  Reece is also a changed man freed from the poisonous influence of Julian, he appears much healthier and is no longer frail.  Ruella, it emerges, unfortunately died of an unnamed illness the previous year, but not before she was able to 'save' the lives of those around her, actually and metaphorically.

Plays 52 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Here's the first review of my 'Plays 52' project. If you'd like to see the full list of plays follow this link.

1. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? asks the question; how does one mourn the loss of a child who never existed and the loss of one's own life lived in the shadow of this? It also speaks to the wider changing social mores of the mid-twentieth century. The events of the play occur over one night in the lives of George and Martha, a middle-aged couple seemingly at the end of their tether.

George and Martha have just returned from a party which has been organised by her father, the principal and apparent owner of a New England university. A few barbed comments fly between them, laced with a genuine affection that it seems almost pains them to let escape. So begins the play that is tinged with a sense of personal tragedy and missed opportunities, the natures of which emerge via the stories told to two young guests.

It turns out, much to George's annoyance, that Martha has invited a young couple, Honey and Nick, that they met at the party back to their house. Nick is a biology teacher who's fairly new in town and Honey is his wife, the daughter of a semi-famous evangelist. As the night draws on and more and more alcohol is consumed, the two couples begin to reveal stories about their pasts that they might not otherwise share - so the dual nature of alcohol, as an agent of truth and as a catalyst for destruction is apparent. It also becomes clear that an all too familiar game is being played out between George and Martha, who's marriage is tinged with bitterness and resentment.

At the culmination of Act I, Honey is literally removed from the action as she becomes sick - suggestive of her innocent nature and perhaps incorruptibility - her body removes the poison from itself, and itself from a poisonous situation. Even when she is intoxicated, her drunkenness is rather playful and childlike - singing "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and giggling. Her drunkenness also has a dual nature as it shows how she is drinking to merely please others; she confesses that she rarely drinks, and also that she is using the drink to shield herself from the hostility of the situation. This innocence also casts a large shadow over the play, and makes the revelation concerning her 'phantom' pregnancy at the end of Act II all the more anguishing.

One character who is never seen but represents a seam of tension running through the play is that of George and Martha's 'son'. The tone of voice and manner in which information about him is delivered immediately creates a sense of tension and foreboding. George and Martha engage in a sort of two-way baiting and pleading, in which George begs her not to bring 'that' up. The ultimate truth about their son cements the fact that they have remained together in spite of not being able to have children - there is an implication that Honey had an abortion, before her and Nick were married, although this is not entirely explicit it adds a sense of tragedy to the suffering of George and Martha.

One can almost see a direct parallel between the two couples, and in a sense the younger pair are seeing a possible future for themselves, which draws out a sense of horror. The night unfolds with a sense of inevitability, a sense that this is a game that has been played out before, a game that George is not enthusiastic about playing, yet knows somehow that he must, thus acting as a self fulfilling prophecy to his notion that people do not learn from history.

In the final act of the play, George reveals that their 'son' has been 'killed' in an automobile accident on a quiet country road. This point echoes and also casts doubt on an earlier tale that George was regaling to Nick. The tale about a boy who accidentally killed both his parents, upon which George apparently based a novel. It remains a mystery as to whether the boy was George.

At the climax of the play, Nick makes explicit that which has been implicit throughout - that George and Martha never could have children. So it is a kind of exorcism that George has carried out with him revealing their son's death. The couple are left alone at the end, finally able to mourn their inability to have children and perhaps more importantly, they are free to mourn their own lives lived in the shadows of this and other failures. There is still a sense of doubt though, and one wonders what will happen next, whether they will learn from their own histories.

52 Plays in 52 Weeks

The plan was to embark on a Foundation Degree in Performance this coming academic year. Unfortunately however, due to funding issues, that is not going to happen until next year now. So, in order to flex my mental muscles in preparation for this return to study, I am going to immerse myself in a world of plays, one a week in fact and follow this up with a 500 word (ish) review, which will be posted on this blog!

So here is the list (compiled by my wonderful girlfriend Elizabeth), which will be either read, listened to in audio book form or, where possible, viewed:

1. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee
2. Communicating Doors - Alan Ayckbourn
3. Antigone - Sophocles
4. The Foxhole - Eric Ferguson
5. Closer - Patrick Marber
6. The Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare
7. Caucasian Chalk Circle - Bertolt Brecht
8. An Inspector Calls - JB Priestley
9. Look Back in Anger - John Osborne
10. Blithe Spirit - Noël Coward
11. Three Sisters - Anton Chekov
12. Yerma - Federico García Lorca
13. A View from the Bridge - Arthur Miller
14. Educating Rita - Willy Russell
15. Glengarry Glen Ross - David Mamet
16. The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
17. Jerusalem - Jez Butterworth
18. Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
19. Sleuth - Anthony Shaffer
20. Arms and the Man - George Bernard Shaw
21. ENRON - Lucy Prebble
22. Saved - Edward Bond
23. How I Learned to Drive - Paula Vogel
24. The Misanthrope - Molière
25. Under the Blue Sky - David Eldridge
26. A Doll’s House - Henrik Ibsen
27. Six Characters in Search of an Author - Luigi Pirandello
28. Shopping and F*cking - Mark Ravenhill
29. Lloyd George Knew My Father - William Douglas-Home
30. The Nature and Purpose of the Universe - Christopher Durang
31. The Government Inspector / The Inspector General - Nikolai Gogol
32. Blasted - Sarah Kane
33. The Unexpected Guest - Agatha Christie
34. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
35. The Country Wife - William Wycherley
36. Beyond the Horizon - Eugene O'Neill
37. The Birthday Party - Harold Pinter
38. Macbeth - William Shakespeare
39. Bloody Poetry - Howard Brenton
40. East - Steven Berkoff
41. Juno and the Paycock - Sean O'Casey
42. Richard the Third – William Shakespeare
43. A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
44. The Killer - Eugène Ionesco
45. The Modern Husband - Henry Fielding
46. Barefoot in the Park - Neil Simon
47. The Alchemist - Ben Jonson
48. The Admirable Crichton - J. M. Barrie
49. Mahomet – Voltaire
50. A Man for All Seasons - Robert Bolt
51. Midas - John Lyly
52. The Pillowman - Martin McDonagh