TheatreLab’s “The Antigone Project” offers a different view of a classic

Samantha McCartney
Staff Writer

The somewhat low lighting and old-fashioned interior of Gallery 5 doesn’t initially give the impression that a theater performance is about to take place despite the small stage in the center of the room.

TheatreLab, an educational outreach program for Firehouse Theatre Project, took those surroundings and made it into an innovative stage for their modernized performance of the classic Sophocles piece “Antigone,” which they have dubbed “The Antigone Project.”

The play follows a corrupt family, who possess a large amount of power but has no idea what to do with it. As the play continues, corruption ensues.

There were no cushioned auditorium seats or carefully placed stage lights in Gallery 5 for this performance. There were a few rows of fold out chairs around three sides of a large square of newspapers laid in the center of the floor.

On the stage, there were wires everywhere. Old TVs were stacked on top of each other with black and white static on the screens. A large projector screen served as the backdrop to the stage, playing distorted black and white images.

“We wanted to bring into the play the idea of the media attack on society and how we are constantly bombarded with images of celebrities but we don’t necessarily know the truth behind those images,” said TheatreLab’s artistic director Deejay Gray.

Of course in Sophocles’ time, there were no cell phones or internet, yet in this adaptation, those elements were of great importance.

The cast wrote “The Antigone Project” as a group, with each actor writing their own lines with their co-stars in particular scenes. The cast also explained that to write this adaption of the play, they first read through three different versions of “Antigone” and blocked the whole play with different perspectives.

During the play, the confused, yet inquisitive looks on several of the audience members’ faces were not without reason.

Between the set design and the untraditional blocking, it was easy to get a bit confused by what was going on. However, the interaction between the actors and the audience allowed for a better understanding of the concept that they were trying to portray.

“I never felt like this was a play, (it was) much more of a performance piece,” Deejay said.

The choral odes, well-known in Greek theater to portray the emotional state of the audience, were re-written from the original “Antigone” and pre-recorded by the actors. The recordings played during intervals of the play, along with 2 second video clips and flashing images of celebrities, cultural icons and well-known YouTube videos.