''Antigone'', also known as ''The Antigone of Sophocles'', is an adaptation by the German dramatist

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

of Hölderlin's translation of Sophocles'

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

. It was first performed at the Chur Stadttheater in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

in 1948, with Brecht's second wife

Helene Weigel Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was an Austrian actress and artistic director. She was the second and last wife of Bertolt Brecht until his death in 1956; together they had two children. Personal life Weigel was born in Vienna, Austria ...

, in the lead role. This was Brecht's first directorial collaboration with

Caspar Neher Caspar Neher (born Rudolf Ludwig Caspar Neher; 11 April 1897 – 30 June 1962) was an Austrian-German scenographer and Libretto, librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht. Neher was born in Augs ...

Productions

A 1951 production of ''Antigone'' at the Griez showed a new prologue written by Brecht in which Antigone, Tiresias, and Creon appear onstage and Tiresias gives an explication of the play. He instructs the audience to analyze the play and observe how humanity rose up against barbarism. In 1967

The Living Theatre The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/p ...

staged a production in English translated from Brecht's German by

Judith Malina Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York C ...

, who also directed it and played Antigone. The production, which had no sets or costumes, was performed over 200 times in its initial run. The Living Theatre Antigone

Ratan Thiyam Ratan Thiyam (born 20 January 1948) is an Indian playwright and theatre director, and the winner of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987, one of leading figures of the "''theatre of roots''" movement in Indian theatre, which started in the 197 ...

directed a

Meitei language Meitei (; ) also known as Manipuri ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur and an additional official language in four districts of Assam. It is one of the scheduled ...

-adaptation of the play in 1986. Cody, p. 1348

Differences from the original ''Antigone''

The play begins with a modern World War II scene in which two sisters discover that their brother, a soldier, has returned from the front. They feed him but it turns out that he is a deserter and he is lynched from the lamppost. This first scene is intended to draw the parallel between the death of Polynices, that marks the first and dramatically key event in Sophocles' Antigone, with that of the deserting soldier in World War II. Creon is played as a Nazi-style dictator, and the cast in most productions wear either modern or World War II German costume to make the parallel more obvious.

Cultural influences

* ''Die Antigone des Sophokles nach der Hölderlinschen Übertragung für die Bühne bearbeitet von Brecht 1948'' (1992), a film from Straub-Huillet.

References

Sources

* * ''Educational Theatre Journal'', Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1972), pp. 47–68 * ''The Tulane Drama Review'', Vol. 2, No. 1 (Nov., 1957), pp. 39–45 Plays by Bertolt Brecht 1947 plays Plays based on Antigone (Sophocles play) Modern adaptations of Antigone (Sophocles play) {{Germany-theat-stub