Cairo, September 6, 2023
As part of the 30th CIFET’s official competition performances, headed by Dr. Sameh Mahran and in the presence of the jury, Cairo Opera House featured the Lithuanian performance “ANTIGONE”, a solo performance derived from Sophocles’ famous tragedy, directed by Birute Mar
ANTIGONE is a tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Sophocles in which the courage and pure spirit of man are expressed through a young woman who dared to oppose a tyrannical king’s unjust decree. She had upheld the laws of the gods and faced judgment under the laws of man
Inspired by classical tragedy, the musicality of its language, and monologues in which “the avalanche of words” resemble folk laments, and in an attempt to embody the idea of murder and the internal conflict that man lives today between his individuality, family, community, and political affiliations, the performance was created in a way to break away from traditional theater; presenting the performance as a sequence of video images contrasting huge chorus figures in the background with Sophocles tragedy characters as small lively spots in the front. This contrast is reminiscent of Antigone’s crime, her sand handful on her brother’s body
King Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, punishes Oedipus’ daughter, Antigone, for attempting to bury the body of her brother Polinycus; she had just poured a handful of sand over his body. Inspired by Sophocles’ classic tragedy, “ANTIGONE” explores how to unite ancient and contemporary languages by contrasting the sequence of video images of chorus with the human figures in the front: Antigone, her sister Ismene, Creon, his son Haemon, the guard, and the prophet Tiresias are all played by one actress. The human body’s fragility and the virtuality of projections are joined by the tremendous action of music and text