Response Form for "Antigone" by Sophocles

EVALUATION: A = 40-36 points earned, B=35-32, C=31-28, D=27-24.

If your response is submitted late, you will lose half the earned points.

HOW TO SUBMIT: Write your response (making clear what assignment you have chosen) and save your work in a word processing file. Open Oncourse:InTouch:DiscussionForum:Antigone Response and post your answer as a Reply to the instructor's message. (You may copy your response into the Message box or send your file as an attachment.) Remember: Responses go to Discussion Forums; WRFs go to Drop Boxes.

ASSIGNMENT: Write a minimum of 500 words on one of the following topics:

1. The essence of traditional drama is the paradox between the fixed script (which is only a blueprint to be interpreted by director and actors and stage designers) and the performance that creates a building from the blueprint, but one that can change (slightly) every performance. Films/tv productions and the videos that come from them set a production in an unchanging form. But a new production can build a rather different performance starting with the same blueprint or script. To understand how this works, read the scene in which Haemon discusses his father's decree and treatment of Antigone. Decide how you will stage it and how you will cast it and write this down and save it in your word processor. Then look at two video clips from productions described below. Write down your initial response to the excerpts right after seeing each one. Then take careful notes on how each production played the scene. Your response: describe your production in contrast and comparison to both "productions." What do you disagree with? What, if anything, would you change in your own production after seeing the two excerpts? Be sure to describe in enough detail so that it's clear which video excerpt you are referring to--so that your reader can "see" the excerpt through your eyes and reactions.

• The first excerpt is from an emotionally expressive modern production (1989 by Amy Greenberg--who plays Antigone) with all speeches as "voice-overs" and action choreographed with gestures and filming decisions (such as close ups of boots or hands) that express inner states. The words will not be the same as in your anthology because a different translation of the original Greek is used.

• The second excerpt is from a 1972 production of Jean Anouilh's version of "Antigone." (This version is roughly like Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story as a remake of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. ) Anouilh [pronounced ah-new-ee] wrote this version of "Antigone" to be staged during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II, so it was important to make Creon's side of things attractive--or the production would be banned! This television production uses a modern setting and more realistic, colloquial language than the Greenberg production.

2. Choose to write on the turning point for either Antigone OR Creon . How does your character change or refuse to change in the course of the play: from what? through what? to what? (Notice this is like a mini-plot from exposition and rising action to a turning point and then through falling action to a resolution.) Actors sometimes think of this as the "journey" their character takes during the play. Your characterization should focus on the turning point for your character.

In your response, focus on the scene (about 100 lines or less) which is a turning point for your character but also be sure to talk about how the scene follows from the previous action (exposition and rising action) and prepares for the following action and resolution. You can see a student sample of this kind of assignment by going to the essay on Troy or Rose in the student production of August Wilson's Fences at http://www.iupui.edu/~elit/fences/ffence21.html

Your response should deal with the play according to the script in our anthology. However, you may find it interesting to look at the video clips, even though the words are different.

Greenberg: Creon's decree

Greenberg: Confrontation between Creon and Antigone

Greenberg: and Antigone's rejection of Ismene's help

3. If you think "Antigone" is relevant to modern conflicts between the individual and the state or religious belief vs. political power, explain how you would mount a modern production--changing plot time, setting and costuming from Sophocles' time in 441 B.C.E. to a more modern setting. Explain the point you would be trying to make and explain how you would try to make either Creon's side or Antigone's side be more sympathetic--or how you would try to make both sides equally sympathetic. That is, be sure to spend about half your time on specifics from the play--not just explaining the modern situation you find relevant. (For example, the French playwrighte Jean Anouilh [pronounced ah-new-ee] wrote a version of "Antigone" that was staged during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II, so it was important to make Creon's side of things attractive--or the production would be banned! Click here to see excerpts from a 1972 television production on Anouilh's play.