Theatre review | Cal Rep's Antigone X

Fortunately, like the students currently protesting for gun-control laws, young people have often spoken up to remind those in charge to do what’s right. Antigone in California Repertory’s Antigone X, at California State University Long Beach’s (CSULB) Studio Theatre through April 8, is one such defiant voice, acting against the orders of her uncle the king not to bury her brother because he was a political traitor.
In this visceral, multimedia retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone by Paula Cizmar, that burial takes on added subtexts of gender oppression and the genocides of recent history. Our current war in the Middle East is also overlaid onto the initial setting, creating a tone of disillusionment and confusion, later compounded by the ominous divining of Tiresias (Kayla Manuel), the blind seer.
Creon (Tom Trudgeon) has just taken control of Thebes in the power vacuum created by a civil war between his nephews— the city’s former rulers, Polyneices and Eteocles, both of whom have died in battle. Assuming kingship, Creon declares Eteocles a hero and Polyneices a traitor, whose body is to be left to scavengers rather than buried with religious rites. Breaking this law, Creon decrees, is punishable by death.
Creon thus sets himself up as a protective patriarch who will provide stability and order to the city through strict enforcement of his laws. His dark, military-style uniform, SS-type henchman Zeno (Erin Galloway) and the large stone wall that dominates the stage behind him reinforce his unassailability as dictator.
But Antigone (Dorthea Darby), Creon’s niece, insists on doing right by her dead brother Polyneices, promising to bury him in secret, with full ritual, despite her dear sister Esme’s (AnnaJane Murphy) attempts to dissuade her since it would put Antigone’s own life at risk.
Raising the stakes for Antigone is that she loves Creon’s son, Haemon (Malachi Beasley), and they wish to marry. (Yes, this is a very close family. You may remember that Antigone’s father, Oedipus, had married her mother, Jocasta, who was also his mother).
Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s seemingly arbitrary and unseemly decree is a touchstone against which the other characters gauge their own willingness to act, including Creon’s privileged wife Eurydice (Rachel Post). How far are they willing to go to stand up for what is “right” even if it is against the law? How much is too much to sacrifice to change the mind of a dictator and incite the people he rules?
These are the questions director Jeff Janisheski brings to the fore, using visual effects to supplement the dialogue. In the wake of the war, characters carry flashlights to see in the darkness, and stage lights flood the audience, involving us in the story’s dynamic. Words, entire sentences and poems are projected onto the stone wall that dominates the stage (impervious, like Creon himself).
By contrast, both in form and changeability, an illuminated disk hangs above the wall, alternately appearing as the moon, Tiresias’s seeing eye, or flashing lightening and birds. Sound effects complement the haunting quality of the images, with bird caws, violin music and voices in chorus.
The eight actors are all up to the demands of their physically and emotionally challenging roles. Dorthea Darby is well cast as Antigone– understatedly passionate in her delivery, physically strong but also graceful in running and leaping and ruminating ritualistically while imprisoned. Kayla Manuel is confident with a penetrating voice as the mysterious, blind Tiresias (temporarily “cursed” to be female but dressed in a white suit and tie).
Tom Trudgeon is similarly convincing as the menacing Creon, his voice suitably deep, loud and articulate, with or without a microphone. And Corduroy Chapman as sentry Herm steals the show with his comedic entrance entangled in rope and struggling against his own reluctance to report that Polyneices’s body has, in fact, been buried.
Though Antigone X is weighted by its many messages, the engaging staging and brave acting make this production well worth venturing to the fittingly modern Studio Theatre at CSULB. You may be reminded of current protectionist policies, though you don’t need Tiresias to know that insularity may lead to disintegration from within. As playwright Cizmar notes, “This play is a play about resistance” – doing what’s right, regardless of might.
Antigone X continues at the Studio Theatre in CSULB’s Theatre Arts Building, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., through April 8, with shows Tuesday through Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $15 to $20. For tickets and information, call (562) 985-5526 or visit web.csulb.edu/colleges/cota/theatre/on-stage-now.