ANTIGONE

Actors of Dionysus

How can the law be maintained, if the ruler bends it to benefit his family? A question posed 2500 years ago which is still relevant today (with David Aaronivitch as the modern Sophocles). With such timeless themes, Greek tragedy really should be a lot more popular than it is. Actors of Dionysus (aod for short) are attempting to change this. In the tradition of the travelling players, they are touring a contemporised adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy the length and breadth of the British Isles, from Derry to Margate to Scunthorpe.

As can be seen even from their stridently 21^st century lower case acronym - aod are thoroughly modern barnstormers. Not only is the play presented in modern dress, but comes in a brand new translation which abandons the 'forthwiths' and 'foresooths' so beloved of classical translators in favour of an altogether more up-to-date interpretation. Unfortunately, the end product is not quite the sum of its aspirations.

Director David Stuttard's translation strikes a very varying tone. With phrases like "Let's get things moving" it uses the idioms of the late 20^th century, and appears to challenge the baseless convention which suggests that ancient drama should be delivered in 17^th century English. But it lacks the courage of its convictions, and spends too much time still entangled in the archaic, formalised sentence structures usually associated with classical drama: "Victory, yet it was hard-won". The juxtaposition of the two styles, ancient and modern, makes both seem inappropriate.

Even more jarring is Stuttard's decision to not only update the setting, but also the textual references. When the Chorus starts talking about sirens, tracers, night-sights and bullets, an audience needs to suddenly readjust its mindset. This is not simply a modern dress production of a Greek tragedy; this is an attempt to reposition Sophocles' play in the present day. Yet whilst this is again a commendable ambition, Stuttard has failed to address the can of worms which opens up as a result. For despite it's timeless theme, this is still the story of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, who defies the order of her uncle the King that the body of her traitor brother Polynieces be left unburied. The entire play is premised on ancient Greek attitudes to the burial (and non-burial) of the dead, and the underlying theme of the blood curse incurred by Oedipus. Making Antigone a 21^st century girl removes the foundations for her hang-up about Polynieces' unburied corpse, and the idea of the sins of the father leading to the inevitable death of the daughter requires a sense of fatalism alien to contemporary British society. It is only by putting her into the context of her time that the piece makes sense: and whilst an audience can cope with that time being presented in modern dress and with modern idiom, filling it with characters who rattle on about turbines, jets and rocket fuel induces serious temporal dizziness.

The attempts to facilitate the engagement of a contemporary audience are, at times, overambitious or poorly thought through; but aod's production is, nonetheless, laudable in striving to bring a timeless drama into the 21^st century. And all the more laudable for taking out on the road to the far flung corners of the kingdom. For if it weren't for aod, how often would people in Holyhead get the chance to see Greek tragedy?

Toby O'Connor Morse

On tour nationwide until December 6th