Classic prof adapts, theater prof directs the classic Greek play Antigone

Beginning Thursday, November 3, the Calvin Theater Company will present an adaptation of Antigone, which some consider to be the most-performed Greek play in the history of the Western World.

See full story: http://www.calvin.edu/news/archive/a-homegrown-antigone

Classical languages professor U.S. Dhuga has adapted the classic Greek play, making the original text accessible to a modern audience. Dhuga's solution was to adapt the play using the four-pulse verses used by T.S. Elliot in his later plays.

"It's what I call 'responsible popularization,'" said Dhuga. "Make it accessible, but not to the point of abandoning the original text."

Authored by the playwright Sophocles in the fifth-century B.C., Antigone is the story of the daughter of Oedipus, infamous in both classical literature and Freudian psychology for killing his father and marrying his mother. Antigone defies Creon the king, to give her brother a proper burial after he has betrayed the state. Creon decrees that Antigone must be walled up alive as punishment, then relents-only to find that she has hanged herself.

Communication arts and sciences professor Michael Page, who has never directed a Greek play before, will bring Dhuga's adaptation to the stage in his final production at Calvin.

"Theaters the world over have done this play again and again and again," said Page. "The issue never goes away because it's actually not resolvable ... . It's as if we need to see it re-enacted because we need to see the problem again so that we can keep thinking about it."

Page's staging of Antigone will reflect this sense of re-visiting the tragedy: "It's going to end, production-wise, exactly as it begins," he said. "So there's a sense that it re-curs endlessly." And unlike many recent productions, Page's Antigone will feature a full Greek chorus.

Antigone will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on November 3-5 and 10-12, and at 10 a.m. on November 11, 2011 (for high school groups) in Calvin's Gezon Auditorium.

The Calvin Theatre Company's 2011-2012 season features productions that are either new translations or new adaptations of literature from another genre, from novels to philosophy to Scripture.

For a full season schedule, visit http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/ctc/

-end-
Received on Wed Oct 26 10:03:03 2011