Arts-Entertainment
The Blue Slipper Theatre kicks off its 62nd season with The Burial at Thebes, an adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone by Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. The production runs from October 2nd-11th, with Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 3 pm. The Blue Slipper Theatre is located at 113 E. Callender, in downtown Livingston.
The Burial at Thebes, first commissioned by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre as part of its centenary celebrations in 2004, brings a powerful new imagining of Sophocles’ 5th Century BCE masterpiece that “takes Sophocles’ dense, concentrated poetry and decants it into a beautifully transparent contemporary idiom” (The Irish Times). The story examines the clash of family duty vs. civic duty, natural laws vs. manmade rules, and a young woman’s personal morality at odds with a tyrannical ruler who believes that his own decrees supersede the law of the land.
Following the downfall of Oedipus told in Oedipus Rex and his exile and death portrayed in Oedipus at Colonus, this third of Sophocles’ “Theban Plays” follows Oedipus’ daughters (and half-sisters) Antigone and Ismene as they navigate right and wrong in regard to the burial of their brother Polynices. The new king, their uncle Creon, has declared Polynices a traitor and refuses proper burial. Antigone’s defiance of this edict drives the action and tragic consequences of the play.
The one-act drama, directed by Marc Beaudin and generously sponsored by Sandra Lambert and Pine Creek Lodge, features Victoria Ouellette as Antigone, Neil Murphy as Creon, Rae Brooks as Ismene, Katie Mangett as Tiresias, Benjamin Morales as Haemon, and Kaz Hall and Milo Stevens as Guards. The Chorus is comprised of Annika Coleman, Keirria Herold, and Fiona Shinn, who also perform original music they have created for this production.
“Antigone has remained in our canon for nearly 2,500 years for a reason: it’s a very human story of speaking truth to power that, for better or worse, will always be timely and essential to our current situation,” notes Beaudin. “In Heaney’s hands, the work retains the vitality and power of the original, while giving it a modern edge, revealed through the masterful poetry of one of Ireland’s, and the world’s, greatest poets.
For tickets and information, visit blueslipper.org, or call (406) 222-7720.