Reception of Classical Texts Project –E-seminar 2007-8
November 2007 –Topic 1
Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu, IULM University, Milan, Italy
In July 2007 I spent some days in Venice with a group of students from my
University (IULM). It was an extraordinary experience: we took part in the first
International University Campus created by an important Italian Theatre director,
Maurizio Scaparro, during the Venice Biennial Theatre Festival which he directed.
A thousand students from all over the world were offered two weeks of shows,
lessons, conferences and close encounters with theatre (see the report in
www.dionys.org). On the opening day, Scaparro greeted the students with these
words: 'You, young people, are my main target as a director. I want you to love
theatre, because I too have been young, once, and my school at that time made
me hate theatre'.
I can easily compare his experience to mine in that: I shared his own feelings
as a student, when theatre was not a common practice in Italian schools and
universities. For years Scaparro and I, like many others, have been working hard
to remedy the lack of theatre for young people. Now the trend is somehow
changing, but slowly: theatre is still misjudged by too many colleagues as a
frivolous spare-time activity compared to 'good studies' such as Latin and Greek
Grammar. And yet, Scaparro reminds me, even the oldest and most venerable of
us teachers must have been young, once. Perhaps we all should remember how
we felt about theatre when we were young, what happened to us the first time we
met theatre. Most probably we saw something, or met someone, that made us
become either a theatre practitioner or a scholar or both, as happened to me.
As I work as a teacher in university and Dramaturg in theatre I keep asking
myself: What in our life made us what we are? Maybe it was a teacher or person
we met, or a particular text we loved and wanted to study (some of us actually
never stop: for a great part of our lives seem almost obsessed with a text). Why
do we 'feel' a classical drama and become interested in it? What do we want to
tell about ourselves through a paper, a script, an artwork, a show or a film?
I put these questions to myself and to my colleagues some years ago, at a
Classics Conference in Barcelona. In my paper I tried what I call –after Pierre
Bourdieu –'an experiment of autoanalysis'. I study my own case and I invite the
reader to do the same. Personally, I found out that my career as an 'anticlassicist' at the Italian 'Classical School' (Liceo Classico) had a turning point. A
performance of Aristophanes' Clouds in Syracuse turned me, a rebel aged 17, into
a theatre enthusiast and showed me the way: a narrow path between classicists
and theatre practitioners. I chose Classics at the University and soon after I
started working in theatre, while I was teaching Greek in high school (for some
years) then Ancient Drama at the University in Venice, in Brescia and finally in
IULM University (see Treu, 2005). Ever since, my work as a teacher and
Dramaturg has constantly interacted with scholarly activity, influenced it,
provided fresh ideas and suggestions. I would like to demonstrate this with a case
I am actually working on.
All my classes deal with modern versions of Greek drama, stage and film
productions. For the final examination each student has to write a sample of an
original script based on an ancient drama. Some prefer to see a show and write a
review about it. Most work, in both groups, focuses on one subject: Antigone.
Over the years this has happened so often that I began to ask myself, why? One
reason is self-evident: Antigone is one of the most popular ancient characters
today (i.e. four different shows are on stage in Milan in the 2007/2008 season).
But I suspect there are other reasons why my students and young people in
general seem to like it better than other dramas.
www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/index.html
Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu
There are indeed many themes and conflicts in Sophocles' drama that might
be appealing for a modern audience. To synthesize, we can roughly distinguish an
'inner side' –what deals with inner thoughts, the identity of the individual, and
the self-consciousness –and an 'outer side': the public law and will of others, the
established social convention, what is commonly thought and accepted as a
proper behaviour. These and other contrasts may be summarized as: Self /
Society, Inner / Outer Law, City / Family, Power / Leadership, Male/ Female,
Elder/Young. This last aspect, I shall call it 'young Antigone', is the one I found
most interesting in my experience and underlies my current studies on reception.
Some years ago in Venice a girl student of mine wrote after my class an entire
script: 'Antigone, la figlia di Edipo'. She then played the leading role and directed
the production in several local Festivals. She wrote her degree thesis on that
experience and successfully passed the final examination. Years later, in Brescia,
another girl student wrote a drama about a male Antigone, whose two sisters
have died fighting over a kingdom ('I had to create a fantasy world –she
complained –because no real Country of any time, not even the United Kingdom,
would fit such a story'). The students' scripts often remind me of Anouilh's
Antigone. She is young and a rebel, above all. When I first read it I was very
young and I identified with Antigone more than I ever did before, or after. Later
on I saw Antigone on stage many times, perhaps more than any other classical
show (the latest one, very impressive, was staged in August 2007 by ArchivioZeta
at the breath-taking II World War German Cimitery in Futa Pass: see Treu, 2007
and the splendid photos on the website http://www.archiviozeta.eu/imma.html).
At my age I do not identify with Antigone as I did at 14, of course. But I still
find new reasons of interest each time I see her on stage or read her story in
class, or outside it. So I am happy that my students love Young Antigone, but I
want them to know more aspects and different faces of her, not just the young
rebel they like so much. In my class I talk about Antigone as a symbol of
struggle, justice, and rebellion against totalitarianism. We hear about her in
theatres, in prisons (see e.g. The Island by Athol Fugard), wherever civil rights
are banished and public power is perceived as oppressive, violent, or corrupt.
Women who risk their lives to bury their brother, or oppose any evil regime, are
compared to Antigone even if they do not know her name. Some Antigones are
still alive, like Benazir Bhutto, back to Pakistan in October 2007 after a long exile:
the death and funeral of her father and two brothers, many years ago, made her
a symbol of struggle for democracy against the military regime. The ghost of
Antigone may also be evoked when women die fighting for freedom and justice,
like the German student Sophie Scholl, executed by Nazis with her brother Hans
and the White Rose group in 1943 (about Antigone's presence in the German
movie Sophie Scholl, die letzten Tage, 2005 see Maria Pia Pattoni's introduction in
the forthcoming Italian edition of the Portuguese Antigona by Sérgio, 2008).
Another 'Antigone of our days' can be considered the Russian journalist Anna
Politkovskaja, assassinated in October 2006, while reporting violations of civil
rights and searching for truth about Chechnya.
Many women still die in the name of Antigone, in real life. In fiction too she is
everywhere, on stage, in books and films: see e.g. the illustrated Antigone for
young readers hand-published in India (Wolf, Rao & Roy, 2001) or the fiction trial
in Italy (Valcarenghi, 2000). Online, she conquered the world wide web. As a
recent study points out, in Google.com the name 'Antigone' occurs 152,000
times, in 34 different languages: 90,400 occurrences are in English, shared
between many Countries; 649 sites are in Japanese, 356 in Chinese, 118 in
Korean, 53 in Indonesian, 1390 in Swedish, 298 in Finnish, 4 in Arabic, 5 in
Hebrew (Ripoli and Rubino, 2005: 156).
Reception of Classical Texts Project –E-seminar 2007-8
November 2007 - Topic 1
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Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu
The study does not tell which sites are actually related to Sophocles and his
character, and what kind of relationship it is. The online documents are too many,
of course. When I began searching on the web for my study, in October 2006, I
focused on young companies, in school and university, or theatres which have a
young audience. As a first sample I chose the home made videos currently on
http://www.youtube.com. Most videos listed under the reference 'Antigone' are
filmed and acted by very young people. High school students read Sophocles'
tragedy in class and stage it as homework. Some sing a rap, based on her story,
while others mime or draw the essential plot. Some play a part of it, a scene or a
dialogue.
Which ones? The choices are very significant: boys usually prefer the fight
theme, the duel between Antigone's brothers, i.e. the antecedent of Sophocles's
drama. Some play it in ironical or parodic version, with boys dressed as females.
Girls' videos are usually different: they add and develop other aspects, like
romantic love, brotherhood, rebellion. Among girls Antigone has more fans. She
even has clones. Five young women years ago formed a rock band named
'Antigone rising' (for history, infos and photos see the official website:
www.antigonerising.com). They tell their story on a video, previously on YouTube
(Meet Antigone rising, part I). They read Sophocles' Antigone in a 'tragedy class'
and were soon captured by this 'strong female figure': she is 'the first woman in
Greece to fight the king', 'brilliant', 'a female rebel'.
This is what I call 'Young Antigone'. Her fans among young people are active
through the web. I also can see this in other teachers' work: in October 2007 I
located Antigone, as a favourite subject for children's theatre classes, in a
'teacher quick reference guide' on the web
(http://childrenstheatre.org/pdfs/2007_antigone_ref.pdf). Among suggested
activities are: to read a short version of the drama, analyze it, play it and
organize a mock trial. I cite: 'In the character of Antigone, young people will find
a worthy heroine unafraid to stand up for what she believes is right against all
odds. Most enjoyed by children age 13+'. 'So young?' –I asked myself –'but how
old is Antigone?'
In Sophocles' Antigone she is in the very moment of life between puberty and
marriage (parthenos). But how old would she be today and how can she appear,
to a boy or girl of her same age? I had the luck to engage with this quandary in
April 2007. After one year spent with Antigone in my University class, I took part
in a conference held in Lovere (BG, Italy), during a week of classical shows
played by High School Students: the common theme, again, was Antigone. The
audience age range was 13-17. I had the difficult task of ending the conference
after some quite heavy scholarly papers. Students were clearly bored to death. I
felt the need to awaken them, to let them see Antigone from another point of
view: not an adult's or a teacher's but the closer to their world. I did not want
them to feel any distance. I wanted them to care about Antigone by telling her
story and showing her on stage and in films.
As I often do in my University classes, I began by asking the audience who is
the main character, according to Greek standards, in Sophocles' Antigone.
Surprise: it is the antagonistès Kreon, who is played by the first leading actor –
the star of the show –the one who has actually the major role and is almost
always on stage. But who wins the heart of audiences? They easily answer:
Antigone. I told them how soon after the première she becomes an archetype.
Probably after 442 BCE. the audience missed Antigone: we can tell this by reading
Phoenissae by Euripides (413 BCE) and Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus (467
BCE). A final scene including Antigone was added to both tragedies by someone
who carefully imitated Sophocles. Many others will follow: before giving a few
examples of her presence and metamorphosis I cite from George Steiner one
Reception of Classical Texts Project –E-seminar 2007-8
November 2007 - Topic 1
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Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu
simple question which is also ours: why is Antigone so popular till today? Why do
we meet her everywhere, in Literature, Drama and Philosophy, and why does she
influence so much our way of living and thinking ourselves? (Steiner, 1984).
I briefly tell them some historical and aesthetical reasons: Sophocles' drama
was generally considered the best tragedy between the French Revolution (1789)
and Freud (1905). For at least two centuries the daughter of Oedipus was more
celebrated and loved than her father. Then the Freudian Oedipus Complex ruled.
But between 1930 and the World War II Antigone rose again, and becomes
definitively a symbol of rebellion, justice, freedom, as a reaction to the violence of
military regimes, Nazi invasion and civil war. Free versions of the Sophoclean
myth appeared in a short time in four European Countries: in Portugal, 1930
(Sérgio, 2008); in Catalonia, Spain, 1939 (Espriu, 1993); in France, 1942-1944
(Anouilh, 1946); in Germany, 1947 (Brecht, 2000).
Quite strangely, I notice, nothing similar happened in Italy. Nobody chose
Antigone as a Myth of the Resistenza, the fight against Fascist and Nazi troops,
although this quite soon gained the status of History and it was celebrated in epic
and lyric tones among intellectuals. In Italy Antigone had to wait long after the
war to become a symbol: the first moment of great revival was in the late Sixties,
when Brecht's Antigone, played by Judith Malina and the Living Theatre (1967),
had a European Tour and touched Italy too. This somehow opened a new era. I
show the students a short scene from that performance and they are strongly
impressed: they cannot believe the video is so old, and yet the show appears so
young (their shock seems so great that I ask myself: what do they think about
their parents, who are probably the same age as the show?)
I continue: in the Seventies Antigone became a symbol on both sides, and she
was seen either as a rebel, or a terrorist, an outlaw or a believer in a superior
justice. In 1977, for instance, terrorism struck Germany. Three terrorists died in
jail. They apparently committed suicide, but most people want to know more. No
German city received their bodies and allowed a public funeral. Some directors,
including Fassbinder, joined together to write and direct a movie called 'Germany
in Autumn' (Deutschland im Herbst, 1977-1978). The movie itself was a free
sequence of episodes. I show only one of them, written by Heinrich Böll and
directed by Volker Schlöndorff: a group of TV managers in 1977 meet for a TV
preview of Sophocles' Antigone, a classical performance simply filmed in theatre,
without any allusion to the modern age. At the end of the preview they decide
that it should not be broadcast: in such a hard times, Sophocles' words can easily
be 'misunderstood' as an instigation to violence. In a dramatic climax, between
fiction and reality, the movie ends with the funeral of the terrorists, finally
permitted: they may rest, but not in peace (see Ripoli and Rubino, 2005: 68-71;
149-152).
In Italy too, since the Seventies, Antigone has often been associated with
terrorism, law or justice: Antigone and the dead are symbols of a split country, on
the verge of a civil war. This is explored in an Italian movie written and directed
by Liliana Cavani, with a significant title: 'The Cannibals' (I cannibali, 1971). At
the conference I showed the beginning, where dead bodies lie all over in the
streets of my city, Milan. The audience was deeply moved. Empathy with
Antigone is still possible, due to her young innocence and great love for her
brother. And yet she is an ambiguous figure, like many of the Seventies, and her
myth now appears compromised by her mingling with terrorism and violence.
An echo of those violent times can be still heard today, but Antigone seems
'to study war no more', as told in the Spiritual Down by the riverside: she is now
studying peace. I end my paper by remembering some Italian people who work
for a better Country in the name of Antigone: an association which campaigns for
civil rights and better condition in jail; a review, first published in 1985, deals
Reception of Classical Texts Project –E-seminar 2007-8
November 2007 - Topic 1
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Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu
with Philosophical and Social Matters; the theatre project 'Antigone delle città'
born in 1991 in Bologna (a city hardly struck by terrorism), promotes public
performances of classical and modern dramas for peace and against violence (see
Ripoli and Rubino, 2005: 146-147; Tognolini, 1991;
www.geocities.com/tognolini/Ant-sag1.html).
After that conference in Lovere I kept working on the subject. I wrote this
paper –my first (I hope not the last) on Antigone –just to show some examples
and give a clue of what I have experienced. Antigone can be of course a symbol
of different things, loved for different reasons at a different age even by the same
people. I focused myself on what appeals greatly to our modern society and
mostly among young people: the character I call 'Young Antigone' is alone,
against her sister, her family, her world. She only has herself. She could follow
Ismene's first choice, obey and live: she only has to give up her brother, her law,
herself. She is loved, and she could choose to love. She chooses death. She has a
boyfriend, but she does not marry him. They marry Death, one by one. They kill
themselves, like Romeo and Juliet. Together they rest. But Antigone is not dead.
She survived Sophocles and all the authors who dealt with her. She never grows
old. Ever after.
Antigone died young, in 442 BCE and many times ever since. Today she is
more alive than ever. Sophocles made her immortal. Forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Bob Dylan, Forever young (1973)
************
Thanks to: Onelia Bardelli, Annalisa Di Liddo, Zachary Dunbar, Maria Pia Pattoni,
Giovanni Nahmias
Works cited:
Anouilh J., 1946. Antigone, La table rond, Paris.
Bourdieu P., 2004. Esquisse pour une auto-analyse, Editions Raisons d'agir, Paris.
Brecht B., 2000. Antigone. In a Version by Bertolt Brecht (translated by Judith
Malina), Applause Books, New York.
Espriu S., 1993. Antígona, edició crítica a cura de Carmina Jori i Carles Miralles,
Barcelona.
Ripoli M. and Rubino M. (eds), 2005. Antigone. Il mito, il diritto, lo spettacolo, De
Ferrari, Genova.
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Young Antigone: An essay of auto-analysis
Martina Treu
Sérgio A., 2008. Antigone, italian version by C. Cuccoro, introduction by M. P.
Pattoni, Aracne Editrice, Roma (forthcoming).
Steiner G., 1984. Antigones. How the Antigone Legend Has Endured in Western
Literature, Art, and Thought, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Tognolini B. (ed.), 1991. Antigone delle città, Bologna (
www.geocities.com/tognolini/Ant-sag1.html)
Treu M., 2005. Antico-classico = Anti-classico? in Classicisme i anticlassicisme
com a necessitats intel·lectuals, Ítaca, Quaderns Catalans de Cultura Clàssica,
Societat Catalana d'Estudis Clàssics, N. 21, Institut d'Estudis Catalans,
Barcelona, pp.181-199 (English abstract pp.279-280).
Treu M., 2007. 'Le montagne parlano greco', Hystrio. Trimestrale di teatro e
spettacolo, XX, n. 4, p.102.
Valcarenghi, M., 2000. Signori della corte. Un'arringa per Antigone, Edizioni re
Nudo, Colle val d'Elsa (SI).
Wolf G., Rao S. & Roy I., 2001, Sophocles' Antigone, Tara Publishing, Chennai
(English Edition Copyright J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA).
Martina Treu:
Webpage: http://www.iulm.it/Default.aspx?idPage=2337&id_docente=501
English Language CV available at
http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/e_archive/2007/TreuCV.htm
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