Updated Antigone has première in Derby

Published: 13 September 2014
Reporter: Steve Orme

Doreen Blackstock who plays Eunice
Oliver Wilson as soldier 1 and Tyrese
Sean Sagar as soldier 3 and sentry

Playwright Roy Williams has brought Sophocles' Antigone up to date in a re-telling of the Greek tragedy which premières at Derby Theatre before going on a national tour.

Williams said, “I was intrigued to know if it was possible to set Antigone in a world that I’ve written about before, i.e. the gangster culture that’s too often the life of a lot of young people today. It’s always disturbed me to hear young people say that being in a gang makes them feel powerful. But as we all know power corrupts.

“Creon begins the play feeling all-powerful with his gang running ‘tings’ in Thebes. It’s almost like he and others like him have put aside other feelings that make us human, like love, insecurity, fear, and masculinity, in favour of a ‘live fast, die young’ mentality.”

Antigone is a co-production between Derby Theatre and Pilot Theatre in association with Theatre Royal Stratford East.

The cast features Doreen Blackstock as Eunice, Gamba Cole, who appeared in Roy Williams’s Kingston 14 at Theatre Royal Stratford East, as Eamon, Savannah Gordon-Liburd as Antigone and Luke James (guard) who were both in Pilot Theatre’s Loneliness of the long Distance Runner, Mark Monero who was in the national tour of One Man Two Guvnors as Creon, Sean Sagar as soldier 3 and sentry, Freida Thiel as Esme, Lloyd Thomas who appeared in Buried Child at Leicester’s Curve as soldier 2 and Oliver Wilson as soldier 1 and Tyrese.

The production is designed by Joanna Scotcher, lighting is by Alex Stafford Marshall and music by Sandy Nuttgens.

Antigone runs at Derby Theatre from Friday 19 September until Saturday 4 October and then tours to Northern Stage, Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham, Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, York Theatre Royal, Watford Palace Theatre, The Gulbenkian in Canterbury, Theatre Royal Winchester and Exeter Northcott Theatre until 29 November.

The production will tour again in spring 2015, opening at Theatre Royal Stratford East.

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