Antigone

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Antigone buries her brother Polyneices and resolutely defies her uncle, King Creon, who has only just come to power. After the fraternal war over Thebes, Creon declares the attacking brother Polyneices a traitor to the state and orders his corpse to be left unburied by law. In mourning, Antigone accepts the death penalty and becomes a rebel against the male order. Threatened by her defiance, Creon passes a judgment that has tragic consequences for everyone involved. Sophocles’ Antigone is both a gripping family epic and a contemporary political thriller: Is there any way for Thebes’ royal family to escape the fate of violence? How can the enduring conflicts between divine and human law, social order and civil disobedience—in the name of universal human rights, women’s resistance, and the patriarchy—ever be resolved? In Friedrich Hölderlin’s celebrated German translation, director Julia Hölscher brings this poetic, powerful version to the stage with a large ensemble.