Janet Bolam's direction of this Oxford Theatre Guild cast is an impressive blend of direct, accessible theatre presenting a clear narrative that draws the audience in right from the first moment.

 

Antingone is "a woman who doesn't want to understand", a "tense, sallow, wilfull girl", determined to bury her brother, knowing her death to be inevitable. Creon is bound by his inability to step free of seeing his office as a duty, above all to the law, and not his own inner sense of freedom and rightness, a freedom he left behind as a child; a freedom Antigone wishes never to abandon, even unto death.

 

The use of the chorus to foresee the inevitability of the fates of each of the characters is, wonderfully, not a spoiler at all, but a means of the production fulfilling itself as a piece of highly watchable story. This, we were are told, is not melodrama, where fate is something to be negotiated with; this is tragegy where there is a calmness in the face of even inevitable death, and we are all merely the players in its necessary unfolding.

 

Anhouilh's play, which was tolerated by the Nazi's inoccuped France, despite the obvious parallels to be drawn between Creon (the dictator) and Antigone (the Resistor), is ultimately a play about the tranquility at the heart of tragedy. Creon is portrayed as a trapped king, unfree who, despite all his power in Thebes, Antigone taunts him: "All you can do is have me killed".. To which Creon replies: "Take pity on me and live".

 

Ultimately is Creon the pragmatist, the leader who believes that a dose of firm control is a short-term investment in a longer-term, more lasting peace. Or is he, as Antigone would have it, a coward?

 

The set is worthy of the professional stage, the lighting pitch-perfect,  the whole company have achieved strong professional standard in a production that wouldn't look out of place on a National Theatre regional tour. Of course there are places where the physicality needs more commitment and believability, where lines stumble a little, But overall, we're drawn in right from the start, the stillness of an actively engaged audience bore this out right to this end. There was hardly a cough throughout.

 

Antigone is physically slight, vocally larger, fearful and "a little too young for what she has to go through" This  red-headed Antigone, played by Jennie Mackenzie, is an actor with a promising future. She needs to slow down in places and be better paced by her director. But in the main, she pulls of the part with impressive emotional commitment, clarity and charisma. Joseph Kennway's Creon is suitably officious and angry when he needs to be. The scene between him and Antigone where he attempts to persuade her to drop her quest for death, is very strong and grips right until the end.

 

On the more negative side, the use of film is a bit clunky and doesn't always flow seamlessly in and out of the live stage action. Also there isn't much on film that couldn't have been achieved with as much, if not more, effect on stage. It's a bold attempt at weaving in film and the attempt to create a Big Brother feel is partly successful. However the shots of guards marching could have been just as effectively realised live, as could the moment when Antigone is taken down to her prison cell; indeed, live we might have had more of a sense of her fear than a brief shot of her turning around (at a distance) and staring up some stairs on film.

 

Also the costumes are a strange mix of ancient and modern. If the idea here is to show that somehow, in the 21st Century, a royal family has gone "retro" and dressed in the finery of classical times, whereas the rest of us dress in modern style, this is a bit of an unclear decision. The mix just isn't very clear to this reviewer.

 

But overall this really is a consistently well acted, engagingly portrayed version of Antigone which holds itself up right until the end. There are electric moments, there's intensity, the narrative flows in a way that makes this a very accessible production. Highly recommended.