Antigone Exits at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre – review

How do you make a 2,500-year-old play relevant to a modern 21^st century audience? Well, it certainly requires more than dressing your actors in lots of Adidas and liberally throwing the F-bomb everywhere.

Nina Segal’s retelling of the Sophocles tragedy sadly has the subtlety of a raging Minotaur and rather than coaxing the narrative into the modern age, instead inflicts the unpleasantness of our time onto the play in an entirely cumbersome way. The jerking direction by Jeff James frequently brings proceedings to a screeching halt as cast members step away from the story to relate modern day tales of death and loss.

Exploring the themes of this Greek tragedy sees a talented company of performers interlace modern narratives with a robust and energetic retelling of the Antigone story. But rather then complementing, instead they hang there loosely like unpegged washing on the line.

Segal tells us that even if one body is left unmourned, then we [society] are cursed. It’s a reasonable philosophy and is handsomely illustrated by James’ use of black paint upon a sun drenched bare stage that spreads like poison amongst the key players of the story. But it all feels uncomfortable rather than challenging.

Antigone buries and mourns her brother against the orders of her uncle, the new King. Creon has decreed that the body remain exposed and visible as it decays without any laying to rest. Defying her uncle, Antigone cannot stand by and let this happen and accepts her own moral fate as being the right price to pay. She questions the power of her uncle and fights against the rule of law to commit to what is right.

Sophocles was a great storyteller and the material is all there for a fine and challenging evening. A small cast of seven are committed and earnestly perform with clarity and instinctive vigour. Running at 75 minutes without an interval gives a powerful and focused opportunity to get under the skin of the tragic and dramatic. But each time that the lights come on and one of the cast reaches for the hand-held microphone that hangs from the ceiling, it snaps you away instantly.

Each interruptive vignette is well told in its own right, in particular Melody Chikakane Brown’s (Tiresias) monologue about the assisted suicide of her husband and Max Bennett (Creon) talking about the loss of his daughter, but they never coalesce as a whole.

It should all be heartbreaking stuff, but there is no emotional attachment as we ping pong from story to story. That being said, Nina Cassells is a strong and vivid Antigone whilst Anushka Chakravarti is equally as headstrong and vigourous as her sister Ismene. Alex Lowde’s stage design is also striking. Whilst there is lots to like, sadly the whole never quite lives up to the sum of its parts, thus making this a disappointing end to this year’s Minerva season at Chichester.