Antigone
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Desperate to gain control over a city ravaged by civil war, Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone's rebellious brother. Outraged, she defies his edict. Creon condemns the young woman, his niece, to be buried alive. The people daren't object but the prophet Teiresias warns that this tyranny will anger the gods: the rotting corpse is polluting the city. Creon hesitates and his fate is sealed.
Sophocles' great tragic play dramatises the clash between the family and the city and, with high poetry and deep tragedy, presents an irreconcilable but equally balanced conflict. Sophoclean heroine Antigone has become a cultural archetype, the symbol of personal integrity and an icon of political freedom, whilst her coprotagonist Creon can be interpreted as either a civic saviour or a ruthless tyrant.
This translation by Don Taylor, accurate yet poetic, was made for a BBC TV production of the Theban Plays in 1986, which he directed.
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Don Taylor (1936-2003) was a playwright and poet, and a director of theatre, television and radio plays. He worked as drama director at the BBC, and between 1960 and 1990, he directed nearly a hundred television plays. He translated and directed for BBC Television the Theban plays of Sophocles – Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus. He followed this with translations of three Euripides war plays – Iphigenia at Aulis, The Women of Troy and Helen. He was co-director of Compass Theatre for while and set up First Writes Radio with Ellen Dryden. Don Taylor's many stage plays include The Roses of Eyam, The Exorcism, Daughters of Venice, Brotherhood, When the Actors Come, Retreat from Moscow, When the Barbarians Came and his last play The Road to the Sea.
