VCCS Litonline

Objective for this Page: To present various adaptations of Antigone.

Adaptations Online

The following notes address updates and other adaptations of the Antigone story beyond the Sophocles tale.  Listings are for websites with more than an all-print press release or event calendar listing.

Antigona Furiosa applies Antigone's story by pointing to the missing in Argentina under a modern tyranny.  The link shows set design with a brief explanation.  Anna Krajewska-Wieczorek, in an article for New Theatre Quarterly (Nov 1994 v10 n40 p327(4)) praises this play and 's Antigone in New York, by Janusz Glowacki (right) which was staged in 1992, for their emphases on the conflict of authority vs. morality and the dominance of human independence. Glowacki's Antigone is named Anita, and she's a homeless Puerto Rican in the Big Apple in an allegorical play that stirred much critical acclaim.

He left out Antigone Now, produced in 2000 in Wales, a working class version of the original dysfunctional family.

Set in 1983 at "an American university at the height of the Cold War," Another Antigone was produced in Seattle's ReAct Theater.  The review at SeattleCitySearch.com characterizes the plot:  "A professor's zealous obsession with ancient Greek classics faces the firing line when an ambitious and willful young woman wants class credit for adapting Sophocles' classic tragedy, "Antigone," into a nuclear-arms conflict with an anti-Semitic subtext."

Other reviews and patron comments are provided by links from the main page (click the photo at left).

The Portland, Oregon, Center Stage did an adaptation of Antigone in 2001 that included the ghost of Polyneices and an "Archivist." (Graphics and JAVA are messed up at play site, but the text suggests an interesting production occurred.) (Photo at left = Nancy Keystone; click photo for a somewhat outdated bio.)

See also an interesting overview of productions of Oedipus Rex in Egypt, including a review of a bad but moving production of the play, and an adaptation that thinly disguises Nassar as Oedipus right after the Six-Day War.

Click photo at left (yes, that's Genevieve Bujold as Antigone) for a review of the DVD release of Jean Anouilh's play (great acting by Bujold and Fritz Weaver, poor quality, since it's adapted from a videotape). 

See production stills from a 1997 production of Anouilh's version at Sweet Briar College and McKendree College in 2001. 

Although written in FRENCH, the commentary on this all-female production of Jean Anouilh's Antigone at La Chimere in May, 2001, includes animation of a small portion of the production.

Assessment:  Choose one adaptation which sounds interesting and review it.  Consider how the staging and actors enhance or detract from the play.

This instructional web was made in July, 2002, by Prof. Eric Hibbison, who is solely responsible for its content.