By Samantha Wang ‘21
On Saturday, October 17th, Classics and Pathways co-sponsored a viewing of the play, Antigone in Ferguson. It was probably the first time in St. Mark’s history when people logged into Zoom for a live play instead of sitting on the Center’s sofas and eating chips together.
Although Antigone was highly recommended by Dr. Harwood, my Classics teacher, and it marketed itself as “aiming to generate dialogue, consciousness, compassion, outrage, understanding, and positive action… [on] the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on black and brown communities,” I didn’t really have high expectations. However, I was mistaken. Even though it was early in the morning, I felt awake when I heard the live choir.
Antigone is a tragedy about the aftermath of a civil war. Oedipus’ two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, kill each other so that Creon becomes the new king, who tries to punish Polyneices for his disloyalty by not burning him. Outraged, Antigone reveals to Ismene a plan to bury Polyneices in secret, but Ismene rejects to defy the king. Creon discovers Antigone’s plot and puts her into jail; later, he sentenced her to death. Only after the persuasion by Haemon, the son of Creon and Antigone’s husband, and the blind prophet Tiresias, Creon changes his mind to not punish Antigone and give Polyneices a proper burial. However, this is too late—Antigone has already hung herself in jail. Haemon, angry and desperate, also kills himself. On hearing the news of her son's death, Eurydice, the queen, also kills herself, cursing Creon. In the end, Creon is held accountable for all the tragedy and prays for a quick death.
The actors were amazing, and thanks to ZOOM, I could clearly see their facial expressions, which, in each second, connected Antigone’s emotions to me. Every subtle movement of their foreheads, eyebrows, and lips, every rise and fall of their facial muscles, and every change in tone of their voice, highlighted the details in Antigone, making the ZOOM play natural and giving an even stronger strike to me than plays in normal settings.
I especially remembered Ismene at the beginning of the play. When Antigone finds her and reveals her plan of a banned burial, Ismene shows us her fear of disobeying the king’s order and her despair of not helping her sister through her eyes, full of tears but with control. Her hesitant look, told us her inner struggle of the choices between going against the king and being disloyal to her family. Even without body languages and a magnificent setting in an ancient palace, Ismene conveyed her emotions well on ZOOM.
The play ended after about an hour, and it was followed by an open discussion. The themes were around racial violence, police brutality, systemic oppression, gender-based violence, health inequality, and social justice. The play and discussion were co-presented by Theater of War Productions, the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, and the Johns Hopkins Program in Arts, Humanities & Health, in which they hoped to raise attention and mourn the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Dion Johnson, and many others. In the future, I would recommend Theater of War productions to Pathways; it’ll be more effective if we hold discussions based on a play we watched and up-to-date social events.
Here is the link to Theater of War Productions, hope you’ll like it, too!