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Weekend
Edition Translating AntigoneStaging Anti-Colonial ProtestsBy MARIANNE McDONALD Sophocles' Antigone speaks to modern audiences, most often and most effectively in languages adapted to those audiences. However, translations of fifth-century BC Greek tragedy in English in the twentieth century are often written in archaic English, which was thought to enhance the ancient dignity of the original plays. Greek tragedy met Shakespeare, and not very good Shakespeare. This misinterpreted the original intent of the ancient Greek playwrights, who each had an individual voice and spoke to audiences at different stages in the history of Greece. Their language differed enormously, from the sonorous obscure lyrics of Aeschylus, to the dramatic drive of Sophoclean poetry, to the colloquial speech of everyday man with which Euripides wrote. It is imperative that whoever translates for the stage should be able to read the ancient language, and also know what language works on the stage and what doesn't. If the phrases cannot be rolled trippingly on the tongue, they should be jettisoned. The translations of Greek tragedy have often been used to deliver political messages. I shall digress here to show a parallel situation. Not only plays, but also something as innocent as a game can be reinterpreted or "translated" style, , and used as political protest. Many have noted that cricket has been used as a tool for turning the tables on the colonial occupiers. England exported cricket as a "civilizing" tool to assert their supremacy with rules and decorum and establish the superiority of the occupiers over the colonized. (So much so that "it's not cricket" came to mean, "it's not fair"). Soon the "natives" were appropriating the game and not only beating the English at it, but adding their own nuances-or what we could call their translations- such as rituals preceding the action, prayers during play, and costumes (Indian turbans). The "All Blacks" (a New Zealand Cricket Team) begin their games with their signature Maori war dance (Haka, also used before Rugby games), and the West Indies have introduced Caribbean style, song and laughter to an otherwise stolid sport. This year began, however, with the total defeat (5-0) of the English by the Australians in a test series, called appropriately the Ashes. There is literally an urn with ashes of the bails set on fire when England first lost to Australia (March 15th, 1877). This is a trophy for the winner, kept at Lords in London. This process has a parallel with translation of Greek tragedy in Ireland. The British, who occupied Ireland for some eight hundred years, forbade the native Irish to be taught in schools, and forced their own curricula on the locals. These curricula featured the English classics in addition to Greek tragedy and Roman epic. Once again the intention was to civilize these barbarians and establish the superiority of a culture that recognized classical values. Yet, in the last few decades there have been more performances of Greek tragedy in Ireland than in any country of the world. In 1984, for instance, in Ireland there were four Irish versions of Sophocles's Antigone (Tom Paulin's, Brendan Kennelly's-written in 1984, but performed in 1986, Aidan Carl Mathews', and a film by Pat Murphy (Anne Devlin); and if one counts the South African playwright, director and actor Athol Fugard's The Island, which opened at the Gate and toured Ireland in 1986, there is a fifth. As a Lanigan on his father's side, Fugard can claim Irish ancestry. Fugard was born with a fierce sense of justice. He makes Antigone's King Creon a symbol of the oppressive apartheid regime in South Africa, which had one set of laws for the whites, and one set for the blacks. Here again we have another classic from the colonizers, with imprisoned blacks using Antigone to protest the colonial abuses. Africans, like the Irish, have often used Greek tragedy against their colonizers. All these translations and
versions feature different dialects, slants, and media. A film
necessarily reduces the original (just as a libretto for opera),
and images must replace some of the text. Certain words in Northern
Ireland are as incendiary as any bomb. Translations manipulate
the emotions of the audience. Performance is itself a form of
translation and gestures add more commentary. For the Irish and
South Africans, Greek tragedy became a means of national self-assertion
against the colonizer. Why Antigone? Because she stood for individual rights against an abusive government. Many Irish, like Antigone, died defending their rights to establish the Irish Free State in 1922, and there are still some abuses in Northern Ireland of treating Catholics as second-class citizens. These Greek tragedies, translated or made into versions, offer a catharsis for the ongoing frustration and a reminder that something is still rotten in the State of divided Ireland. Tom Paulin's variation of the Antigone myth (The Riot Act) presented Creon with the same strident rhetoric as the Northern Irish Protestant leader Ian Paisley. Modern productions in Ireland
can also offer social critique of abuses in other places, where
the Irish experience of a colonial invader trying to civilize
the barbarian is replicated. In 2003, Conall Morrison staged
his version of Antigone in Galway, which he also brought
to Dublin; it illustrated the ongoing Israeli and Palestinian
conflict. His spring 2006 production of Euripides' Bacchae
made the abused Dionysus and his bacchantes Iraqis. The
Bacchae was translated into production as a parable of religious
intolerance (something replicated in my translation performed
in fall 2006 at 6th at Penn Theatre in San Diego). My translation can be considered
another Irish Antigone, since it was initially performed
in Ireland and exported to international festivals with an Irish
cast. I have tried to make my translation of Antigone accessible
to modern audiences, while trying to remain faithful to Sophocles'
intent. It travels to different historical, political, and performative
contexts, bridging themes of justice from ancient fifth-century
BC Greece to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries AD. Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother, but would not rest until he discovered the truth about himself. All heroes and heroines have a fire that fuels them in their quests. For Antigone it was seeing that justice was carried out. Antigone is truly Oedipus' daughter, and once she decides to defend what she knows is right (and bury her brother against King Creon's decree), the "unwritten law of the gods," she will not capitulate. Written around 441 BC, Sophocles' Antigone celebrates the earliest heroine in ancient drama. Antigone is the first conscientious objector, opposing Creon, King of Thebes, and what she sees as his unjust laws. The play is often performed as criticism of the unjust practices of a prevailing government. There are many conflicting interpretations of this play, which the German philosopher Friedrich Hegel claimed was the finest play ever written. Whereas he saw justice in both Antigone's and Creon's positions, some modern commentators see right only in Antigone and view Creon as a stereotypical dictator in the wrong. Bertolt Brecht's version blackened Creon with fascist colors, and Andrzej Wajda had his chorus wearing miners' helmets cheer Antigone to celebrate Solidarity's defiance of the Communists in a Polish translation of the play performed at an international festival of Greek drama at Delphi. However, things are not so simple in the original Sophoclean play. As Hegel suggests, two rights are opposed: the right of the family against the rights of the state. Familial values conflict with state interests, and the duty towards the gods of the underworld is opposed to the duty of obeying the ruler, sanctioned by the Olympian gods. Personal issues confront public issues, and they radically influence each other. More than an opposition of rights, this play brilliantly shows us the opposition of two passionate people (Creon and Antigone) who go hell-bent to their own destruction. Antigone's hot-headedness is particularly clear in a couple of angry exchanges with her sister, Ismene. Nevertheless, she is indisputably a heroine who knows her duty to her family. Creon opposes Antigone with the might of law to control a city, from whose order and smooth running, he says, personal happiness results. With Sophocles' usual dramatic economy, Antigone is punished by the ruler whose laws she opposes, and Creon is punished by the loss of his own family, whose values he subordinated to the city. Creon tries to be the best ruler he can be and to benefit the city. There were, in fact, precedents in ancient Greece for not burying the body of one's enemy. Antigone is also right to honor the proper burial that the gods of the underworld claim. Both should have compromised, but neither did. That's why we have tragedy. The play illustrates how both human beings and cities are destroyed if the opposing sides will not compromise. The choruses in this play speak of all that concerns humanity: victory, defeat, life, death, love, hate, crime and punishment. As usual, Greek tragedy gives us insight into ourselves and asks questions. Who is the best person to lead others? When we see clearly that something is wrong, should we take a stand as Antigone does? Or should we choose Ismene's part, the one who compromises, and follows the leader in every sense of the word? That choice is yours, and translation is your guide.
Fugard directed my translation of Antigone at the Firkin Crane Theatre on July 20, 1999 in Cork, Ireland. It ran for about three weeks before moving on to a performance in Listowel, County Kerry. The cast consisted of international students who came to Cork to study drama. The actress who played Antigone came from Belfast, and several others came from England. Creon was played by an American who was half black and had taught unruly deprived students in a New York ghetto. Scranton as Creon treated Antigone like one of his students, trying to explain to her what she was doing wrong. But Antigone ultimately would educate him. Too late, however. Compromise it seems is one of the most difficult things for rulers and heads of states to accept. Tiresias was played by a tall Serbo-Croatian, pale-blond, and fey. He projected ambiguity, but also showed a temper when roused. There were many British in the cast, in addition to Irish Catholics, so confrontations alternated with accords. Accent became an additional tool for translation. The rehearsals showed how Fugard could develop the full potential of the original text. His direction became an added translation. Fugard usually begins the rehearsal process slowly, with a reading of the text with the actors. At the first reading, he gives them permission not to "act" and discourages interpretations by telling them to treat the play as if they were reading the telephone book. Because the actors have permission not to "perform," they can begin to become acquainted with the story in a relaxed way. Fugard also encourages questions, and all can benefit from the answers. At first, Fugard lets his actors move by themselves and develop their own approach to the role. He begins to give stage directions only after he has seen their first attempts in the rehearsal room. Then he gradually starts to shape their performances. Sometimes he draws on the actors' own discoveries. At other times he changes the entire initial performance-but so gradually that it seems as if the actors are discovering it for themselves. He will use little tricks, like saying, "As you mentioned the other day, perhaps you should cut down on your hand gestures at this point," so the actors can think that they are giving birth to their own roles in their own way. Successful rehearsals are the result of careful craftsmanship. Fugard guides the actors gently,
even musically, from the page to the stage. He punctuates scenes
with changes in rhythms, slow alternating with quick, and he
also alternates humor with seriousness. At the beginning, he
is all sweetness, but then he develops an edge. Sometimes he
loses his temper, which he conveys not by shouting but by silence
and withdrawal. The actors find this hell and will do anything
to win him back into communicating with them. Fugard gradually
becomes more aggressive to get the performance he wants. He sometimes
ends a day with everyone frustrated, but himself most of all.
The next day, the actors redouble their efforts to deliver what
he is asking. The rehearsal room gets very tense the week before
an opening. Fugard fine-tunes every performance and becomes even
more exacting in his demands, while remaining considerate of
the actors' own needs. On opening day, he simply tries to get
them to relax. Finally, Fugard believes passionately that the inherent nature of theater allows it to offer a truer picture of life than is possible in film. In theater, the human being is limited by the reality of the space, but in film, technology can correct defects. On stage, the actors are also limited by time because each performance is a single, unique event that can never be repeated. The stage offers a paradigm for life: brief and at times beautiful-and sometimes beautiful simply in the accuracy of its portrayal of ugliness. In Cork we had six weeks before
the first performance. Fugard gradually drew out the best from
the cast. He seated the chorus and all the actors in a circle
to watch and listen to the actors who were featured in a scene.
As the actors rose to enact their scenes, they left the circle.
Fugard noticed that some of the actors in the circle weren't
paying attention but were looking at the ceiling or closing their
eyes. He lost his temperonce. After that, all the actors
paid attention because they realized how important they were
both to the other performers and to the audience. Even if characters
have no lines, they must never let themselves become static or
lose concentration on the action taking place on the stage. They
must remain in dynamic contact with the other actors and the
audience at all times. One could argue that this is not translation, per se. But it becomes so. Fugard used the repeated words as music, which the original Greek tragedy featured with its chorus that sang and danced, and which led Nietzsche to write The Birth of Tragedy (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, 1872), linking the origin of tragedy to music, parallel to the claim of the Florentine Camerata in the 17th century tracing the birth of opera to Greek tragedy. Only when the first chorus
(played by one woman dressed as a man, instead of a group of
Theban male elders as specified by Sophocles) enters do the full
lights fill the stage to coincide with the sunrise as described
in the first choral ode. When Creon first appears, he is greeted
by a shout of "King Creon!" and is cheered at appropriate
times. All the actors seated around mutter in agreement with
certain points Creon makes. When Creon arrives to give
his first speech, he goes around and shakes hands with many in
the audience. During the debate with Antigone, he stands behind
the audience (it was a small theatre, almost in the round), as
if the audience itself is interrogating her. Damen Scranton as
Creon moved the audience to tears in his final heartrending lamentation
at the deaths of both his son, Haemon, and his wife, Eurydice,
at the end of the play. Fugard acts as Virgil to Scranton's Dante
as he leads him into his personal hell, and he takes the audience
with him on his journey. At the end of the play, the dead bodies are symbolically represented by articles of clothing. Haemon throws his leather jacket at his father. Eurydice lays her cape down at Creon's feet. Finally, Antigone puts the circlet of little flowers that she wore on her way to death next to the two "bodies." The four actors who began reciting the names at the beginning start again. They fade away, and Ismene calls quietly, "Antigone?" three times. But this time silence answers her. The lights go up. Fugard also had moments of
humor to relax the actors. Just before opening night, he told
them to give an "abbreviated" performance. Patricia
Logue, the actress from Belfast who was playing Antigone, gave
the most abbreviated of all: she simply raised her middle finger
to Creon in the classic obscene gesture, which summed up her
act of defiance explicitly, the ultimate translation. Scranton's
soul-wrenching performance as Creon made audiences see that the
tragedy was possibly more Creon's than Antigone's.
It was Fugard's directing that brought this text to life and made it politically significant for modern Ireland. The multi-ethnic cast also extended its significance to the world, and showed the power of theatre to blur boundaries, whether of nationality, culture, or gender. At one point accent and dress functioned as a type of mask when one actress played two different Messengers. The first Messenger (played by an actress, again blurring the gender of the original) spoke with a strong rural Irish accent, and the second Messenger (played by the same actress) spoke like a well educated American. Antigone, with its strong ideas, conveyed in a truly human drama, was a perfect vehicle for this mingling. There was a sacred quality to this production. On two occasions the gods serendipitously ratified Antigone's comments. On the tape of the production one hears church bells as Antigone makes the statement, "I know that whatever I suffer, I shall die with honor". Bells also chimed as Antigone spoke words before her death (and final exit, just before Creon enters): "All wretched, no longer may I look on the holy eye of the sun's light" . Then one evening, it was raining as a performance was taking place. When Antigone delivered the blood-chilling line, " ifhe [pointing at Creon] is guilty, I curse him and I demand that the gods make him suffer the same pain he unjustly inflicts on me" lightning flashed and the heavens thundered mightily. In Ireland and in Greece, words and curses have consequences because the gods are listening. The gods heard this translation. An Irish Antigone in Delphi and Vienna, 2000 This same translation, opened in Cork (Half Moon Theatre), in a different production by an Irish company called DonAd. It traveled to festivals in the millennium in Greece and Vienna. It may well have been the first visit to Greece by an Irish troupe performing Greek tragedy. Every Irish version of Antigone could be construed as a reminder of the defiance of the late Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison in 1981. The Greeks, having lived under Turkish occupation, and military juntas, also knew the value of the individual voice that pleaded for justice, and so Antigone had particular resonance for them. In Vienna, memories of Hitler were still alive, and Antigone aptly celebrates defiance of unjust brutality. In both this performance and
the original one directed by Fugard in
Ancient seats surrounded the acting space (the old Stadium), and out of their instruments-circular drums that shone white as stones-the actors created a sacred circle that resembled some of the raths (ancient "fairy circles", or defensive earthworks) in Ireland. These drums were banged on the ground like bin lids after Antigone was condemned. They reverberated round the hillside. Actors and actresses left the
circle to play their roles and returned when they were not needed,
just as they did in the production directed by Fugard. The ancient
theatre was invoked by these circular spaces (and at Delphi,
the seats also were semi-circular, as in most ancient Greek theatres).
The actors were dressed in flowing robes, a cross between ancient
Greek actors and Irish druids. This production went on to Vienna and the festival at the site of the ancient Celtic town of Carnuntum. Under the able leadership of Piero Bordin (half-Austrian and half-Greek), this festival performed both Greek and Latin translations and versions at the theatre on the ancient site of Carnuntum. Various lines had resonance for the Germans: everyone remembers Hitler and the rallies where cheering was required. Antigone says to Creon: "Everyone here would cheer me, if fear didn't silence them. But the tyrant is lucky: he can do and say what he likes with impunity". Haemon says when he confronts his father: "No city belongs to one man". These lines are also significant for Americans living under Bush, as audiences affirmed during the San Diego performance when they recognized the obvious parallels between Bush and Creon. In 1999, the award winning documentary filmmaker, Tania Kamal Eldin went to Ireland and made a video of the Antigone choruses interspersed with film clips of the "troubles," and rare footage from the 1916 rebellion in Dublin, Bloody Sunday in Derry (Jan. 30, 1972), and the Maze prison hunger strikers. The choruses speak to the Irish:
This crime calls for vengeance. And to all of Irish History:
In this video, shown before
the stage performance began, Michael Collins and Éamonn
de Valera, two leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and the War
of Independence that followed it, were seen speaking to large
audiences in the streets, rallying support for the Rising; Bernadette
Devlin, the Northern Ireland civil rights leader and Member of
the Westminster Parliament (1969-74), featured prominently and
was clearly representative of Antigone in risking her life for
Republican causes. When this same translation of Antigone came to San Diego in May 2005, it expressed the growing war weariness with America's invasion of Iraq. It opened first at Sixth at Penn Theatre in San Diego, directed by a black director, Delicia Turner Sonnenberg. To escape economic hardship, many blacks and Hispanics enlist to fight in Iraq, a war that they may have believed in initially since they were duped by the propaganda. The multicultural casting of this production reflected this fact. One chorus that praised God (Dionysus) was sung like a black spiritual. There were many telltale signs
that showed this was an American, and specifically Californian
interpretation. For instance, when the chorus invoked Dionysus,
they used Buddhist gongs and a quartz crystal for the invocation. Ismene, by contrast, was dressed
like a fat-cat Republican with hair up, heels, and a fashionable
suit. Eurydice, Creon's wife, and Creon likewise came on stage
in formal wear. The women wear expensive-looking jewelry suggesting
wealth, and the politics that usually go along with that. The actor playing Creon (Dale Morris) had a southern accent, an obvious take on Bush. He appeared charming at the beginning, and danced with his wife to celebrate the opening victory. As one reviewer said, "The steely intractability reveals itself when he debates Antigone, whom one reviewer called 'a hothead with a heart'." When the play begins we see her (a white blonde actress, Jennifer Eve Kraus) kissing Haemon, Creon's son (played by a black actor, Mark Broadnax, who also plays the Messenger). Tiresias was also played by a black actress (Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson), whom few recognized as a woman. She captured well Tiresias' bisexuality (Tiresias spent time as both a woman and a man in Greek myth). In neither the Fugard nor the Irish (DonAd) production of this play were the roles doubled (except for the Messenger in Fugard's), but they were, here. Haemon announces his own death at the end, as does Eurydice. She gave particular emphasis to the words: "She killed herself with a sword near the altar. She closed her eyes and welcomed the darkness, weeping for Haemon. Finally, she cursed you as the murderer of her child". In San Diego Arts, Jennifer Chung said of the performance:
For the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jennifer de Poyen wrote:
At the same time this translation
was being performed at Sixth at Penn Theatre, it was offered
at the University of California, San Diego, directed by Jeremiah
LaFleur. The cast consisted of undergraduates and was also multiethnic,
reflecting the student body. All these plays show that Antigone shows up in venues around the world, just as she is needed. She is translated anew for the cultural spaces she visits. The best translations do not simply serve up literal word-by-word renderings to allow someone to master the original language, but rather serve the new contexts offered by directors, actors, and audiences. Marianne McDonald is a member of the Royal Irish Academy
and Professor in the Department of Theatre and Classics Program
at the University of California, San Diego. Her latest co-edited
book (with J. Michael Walton) is the Cambridge
Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Theatre (2007). See:
http://mmcdonald.info. She
can be reached at: mmcdonald@ucsd.edu
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