Antigone Journal One

The Staging for Antigone (Pages 3-6)


While reading, I envisioned the stage to be set to modern times. To explain, I shall post the first paragraph of this play, then explain my thoughts from it to better show my imagery I got from the text.

"ANTIGONE, her hands clasped round her knees, sits on the top step. The THREE GUARDS sit on the steps, in a small group, playing cards. The CHORUS stands on the top step. EURYDICE sits on the top step, just left of center, knitting. The NURSE sits on the second step, left of EURYDICE. Ismene stands in front of arch, left, facing HAEMON, who stands left of her. CREON sits in the chair at right end of the table, his arm over the should of his PAGE, who sits on the stool beside his char. The MESSENGER is leaning against the downstage portal of the right arch."

Picture this. You are in New York. Walking down a sidewalk with trees beginning to turn from the color green to the colors of Fall. They are becoming orange, red, and brown. As you are walking, they are slowly falling one after the other down to the earths soil or to the pavement. Most of the leaves are being caught by the wind and fall onto the pavement instead of the two foot by two foot enclosed black fence where each tree stands in. Of course, these trees are evenly spaced, because that is how nature works. (sarcasm) To the left, there are Townhouses with five gray steps leading to the doors where families live.  You keep walking the streets, while cabs honk and people on their bikes are pedaling. Everyone has some place to be, but with all of this madness you are surrounded by, you come across a townhouse that is twice as large as every other one. There is a black fence, and to enter to the five gray steps that are larger and wider, you have to walk under an arch. There is a woman who is sitting on the top step to the far left with her hands crasped around her knees. There are three police officers who are sitting on the top steps to the far right bypassing time by playing cards even though they live in New York, and there is a lot of criminals in the area...... (Which they should be fullfilling their job description when they are CLEARLY NOT!) Then you see a man who seems very proper. He is wearing a gray pin striped suit, and looks as if he has important business to be discussing at that particular time. Your eyes are drawn to the older lady sitting in a rocking chair knitting like the sweet old lady that she seems to be. She is rocking back and forth at a steady pace, looking as if she is in her own world although she is close to the woman named Antigone. One step down and to the right,there is a lady dressed in her work clothes from the night before. Her light blue outift and her plain white shoes indicate she is a nurse from the local hospital. A woman, Ismene, is standing to the left of the arch in front of it. You see her staring at a person by the name of Haemon. You also notice that Haemon is standing to the left of Ismene. Your eyes are directed toward a man, Creon, who is sitting in front of the gate, on the right of Ismene and Haemon, on a chair. While his arm is around his girlfriend who is sitting on a stool. Then, there is the mail man. He is taking a break from work. So he decided to stand by the nearby max station stairs.

This may be completely off, but that description is how I envisioned this part. To me, it seemed like it was a little chaotic, and everyone wanted to be somewhere, but for some reason, they were, where they were. On the other hand, I can envision this being set by a midevil castle and outside the gates of the Kings land. I mostly try to see the play in how it makes sense to me, meaning more modern because I can experience what is going on theoretically, sometime in my life.