Task 1: Exploring Techniques: Antigone Exploration

 Antigone Exploration

Context

• Antigone is a tragedy written by Sophocles. 
• Laius, King of Thebes, and his wife, Jocasta, have a son called, Oedipus. They receive a prophecy that Oedipus will murder his father. To avoid this, Laius and Jocasta leave the infant alone to perish. The prophecy becomes true as Oedipus survives and kills his father. Oedipus then marries his mother, Jocasta and together they have 4 children: Eteocles, Polynices, Ismene and Antigone. When they discover the terrible truth, Oedipus blinds himself and curses his sons, saying they will kill each other, Oedipus dies in exile. Eteocles and Polynices decide top rule Thebes together as King in alternate years. After his year, Eteocles refuses to abdicate. This begins a bloody battle between the brothers and there armies. At the 7th gate of Thebes they kill each other. This results in Eteocles and Polynices' Uncle and Jocasta's brother to take to the throne as he is the only living male heir. The play starts from this point.
• Antigone was written in a time that was bookended by turmoil, from wars to revolts. It is thought that Creon was loosely based off of 'Pericles', an Athenian statesman involved in the formation of the Athenian Empire. Sophocles portrayed the world around him through theatre.

A Brief Outline                                                                                                                            

• The play begins after the battle where King Creon makes a law that no one can bury Polynices and honour him. Creon promises death to whoever buries him. Antigone wants to disobey the King's law by burying her brother and tries to get her sister, Ismene, to help. Ismene refuses to disobey the king. Antigone goes through with it and buries her brother but was spotted in the act by a guard. The guard wasn't sure who buried Polynices but thinks it was Antigone. The King interrogates Antigone and she proudly admits to the crime and was ready to suffer the consequences. Ismene tries to take the blame by saying she helped Antigone but Antigone tells the King that she had no part in it. Creon sends Antigone to her death due to her actions. Creon and his wife, the Queen, Eurydice, have a son called Haemon who is engaged to Antigone. They are in love and when he hears about Antigone's death sentence, he tries to get Creon to change his mind. Haemon goes to free Antigone but finds that she had killed herself. Distraught that his loved one is dead, he too commits suicide and dies beside Antigone. Creon tried to take back his actions but it was too late. When Eurydice, Haemon's mother, discovers her son is dead, she takes her own life. The only ones to live are Creon and Ismene. 

Themes

• Justice
• Politics
• Gender - The role of women
• Death

Techniques and Elements

• Antigone follows Aristotle's narrative structure, meaning, the play follows a structure starting with an exposition then the play has rising action, the rising action leads to a climax the play then has falling action as the climax gets resolved. The play finishes with a denouement.
• Antigone also has a Greek 'Chorus'. A 'Chorus' is a group of people that basically narrate the story and play little 'side' characters. Greek 'Chorus' techniques include: unison, refrain, solo lines, antiphonal, line-a-round and cumulative. These are different ways lines can be spoken in a Greek 'Chorus'. 
• Elements in a Greek 'Chorus' include: dynamics, pitch, movement, power, tempo,  rhythm and sound effects. The way you use these elements helps to give the audience an idea of the overall tone and atmosphere to the play. 

Antigone Exploration - Montage

• As a group, to help understand the basic plot of 'Antigone', we selected 5 key moments/section of 'Antigone' and created a montage using techniques and elements of Greek theatre and Greek 'Chorus'.

1. Antigone and Ismene discuss the burial
2. The King and Guard
3. Ismene takes the blame
4. Antigone, Haemon and Eurydice take their lives
5. The King realises he's too late

 Techniques We Used In Each Scene

1. Unison, solo lines and cumulative speaking
2. Unison, echo and sound effects (gasp)
3. Solo lines and Unison
4. Sound Effects (gasp) and solo lines
5. Unison and solo lines

Antigone Exploration

Rehearsal and Performance of a Classical Role

Which character did I play?/ What part of the script did I perform?

• I played 'The Soldier' and performed the scene between 'King Creon' and 'The Soldier'. This scene shows 'The Soldier' informing the King that Polynices has been buried by someone. The King has his suspicions that it could be 'The Soldier' but he states otherwise. 

What elements/techniques of Greek Theatre did I use?

• We used a range of tone in our voices when saying our lines to portray our characters emotions. We used movement to show the power dynamic between 'King Creon' and 'The Soldier' by having 'The Solider' low and 'King Creon' high to show that the King has the authority. With my use of movement, I also used proxemics to show the distance between the 2 character's to create tension. To also heighten the tension, 'King Creon' walks slowly towards 'The Soldier' and overall slows the tempo/rhythm of the lines and performance, creating a tense atmosphere and building it up as the audience know something is about to happen but they don't know what. We also used pitch well to portray the emotions of the characters. I use a variation of  volumes when I speak my lines to balance the anger and fear in 'The Solider'. The performance finishes with 'King Creon' speaking the line loudly. This heightens the tension and shows the King's anger. It also gives a sense of dominance to 'King Creon' as he is the last person to speak and the volume of the line hooks an audiences full attention to that 1 specific line.

Self Reflection 

• Overall, I think our performance was successful as I think we managed to portray elements of Greek Theatre well. I think our use of proxemics, movements and tone worked very well to build up and create a tense atmosphere. I think I portrayed my character's fear well through my facial expressions and simple movements. I think my simple movements, makes the audience look and focus more closely on what we are saying instead of what we are doing. Also the simplicity at certain points slows the tempo/rhythm of the scene and heightens the tension. 
• When it came to learning my lines off by heart and the actual language in 'Antigone', I found it quite difficult to learn my lines as the actual structure and language of the lines is very different to how we speak now. Phrases are rather long so I found it difficult to remember the order of the words. To me, the lines don't flow smoothly so it was easy to stumble on my words. After a lot of focus, I did learn the learn the lines off by heart. 
• If I could do something different, I would have experimented with movement a bit more. In Greek Theatre, movements had to be overly exaggerated so the audience could see the movements clearly as the theatres were so big. I would have tried this scene with over exaggerated actions to see if  it overall affects the tension. 
• Our rehearsal was different in comparison to our actual performance. In the rehearsal, I knelt on one knee and had my arm on the leg that was up, this is the position where 'King Creon' pulls me up. We changed this position to me being fully kneeling down with both legs as it made it easier and smoother for 'King Creon' to lift me up. During my line, "A handful of dust," I was standing in the rehearsal. For the actual performance, I decided to change that to me kneeling down and miming picking up the dust. I felt this would help an audience to actually visualise the scene and to also give levels between 'The Soldier' and 'King Creon'; again reinstating that power dynamic between them.

Antigone Exploration - Rehearsal

Antigone Exploration - Performance of a Classical Role

Antigone Exploration - Performance Feedback