Antigone

by Hollie McNish

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

Synopsis

A modern retelling of Sophocles' classic play, Antigone, by bestselling writer and poet Hollie McNish

As the daughter of Oedipus, Antigone was dealt a cruel hand at birth - even within the bounds of Grecian tragedy. When her brothers are slain fighting for the throne of Thebes, Antigone finds herself pitted against her uncle, the newly crowned King Creon. In defiance of the king, Antigone buries her brother's body, a choice she may pay for dearly.

In this new adaptation, we see Sophocles' play reignited by bestselling poet and writer Hollie McNish. Hollie's considered retelling brings Sophocles' original text to a modern-day audience, illuminating the remarkable resemblances between ancient Greek thought and the society we grapple with today.

'[Hollie McNish] writes with honesty, conviction, humour and love . . . She's always been one of my favourites' Kae Tempest

Release date: October 7, 2021

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

A single word frees people of all weight andpain of life, and that word is love.

– SOPHOCLES

 

I was approached to reimagine the play that you are about to read – possibly in bed or a big bubble bath because you fancied something ancient to delve into, or maybe you are being forced to read it awkwardly in front of your class by a keen teacher – by a lovely guy called Alex Clifton, then Artistic Director of Storyhouse, Chester, UK.

Alex himself is a sunbeam of a human who, many times now during my career, has encouraged me to work on projects that initially I didn’t feel too confident about. As well as Alex being lovely, Storyhouse is one of my favourite theatres, largely because it is a beautiful library (with a great children’s section), cinema, theatre and café in one – and for this reason one of the least intimidating theatre spaces I’ve been in. Despite all this, when Alex first asked me I said no thank you. I don’t want to work on Antigone.

I said no, first and foremost, because I did not feel qualified to reimagine Antigone – a play written over two thousand years ago by one of the most enduring playwrights of ancient Greece.

I have not studied theatre, I told Alex. I was not in any school play, save being a shepherd in the Primary nativity, tea-towel thrown on my head for extra credibility. Perhaps more importantly, I thought, I am not really a ‘theatre-goer’, as people say. I had seen, before working on this play, perhaps twenty plays in my entire life. During my childhood and into adulthood, most of the plays I saw were pantomimes or musicals, an outing maybe once a year with family or friends as a Christmas treat. And it was a treat. I loved them, and still do, especially The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and most recently the Tina Turner musical. Antigone, on first reading, did not seem to be this sort of play; not the sort of play I ‘got’. It was, as I put it at the time, ‘serious theatre’ and I did not have a great track record with ‘serious theatre’. (By this term, I mean theatre with more serious, less comedic themes, or at least serious themes spoken not sung – I am not implying pantomimes or musicals are not serious art. I firmly believe they are and should be credited as such.)

So, musicals and Christmas pantos aside, I have often found theatres fairly intimidating spaces, so much so that I’ve paid to get into my own poetry gig before for fear of telling the person at the front of house that I was actually the main performer.

Other scuffles with ‘serious’ theatre shows have also increased this feeling of trepidation. Not the plays themselves, so much as the whole experience within these spaces. Examples (in no particular chronological order) include having been glared at for taking a quiet sip from an apple juice carton; been scowled at by a fellow audience-member for opening a packet of crisps, and feeling so awkward about making any tiny noise that instead of chewing them I just sort of sucked each crisp quietly into tasteless mush and swallowed; having been looked up and down by a group of very well-dressed people (I assumed for being a bit scruffy but it may not have been this and I may just have imagined it because I felt awkward and under-dressed in the theatre a lot of the time); and, going back to early childhood, having been forced by my loving parents, when I was about eight, to wear a red velvet pinafore and floaty white blouse (that my gran had bought me and which I absolutely hated) because my school was taking us to see a play and I ‘had to look my smartest for the theatre’. My mum recalls fondly that before this school trip I shut myself in our bathroom screaming ‘I don’t want to wear that horrible dress’. I wore it in the end but sat watching the play refusing to unbutton my anorak. From a young age, serious theatre seemed to involve wearing clothes you felt uncomfortable in in order to look like you were something you weren’t and being quieter than was humanly possible. I longed for the popcorn freedom of the cinema.

In later years, I did start to appreciate the theatre trips my parents took me on, but I still wasn’t great at the seriousness – neither were they. My most vivid memory in this respect was being told off as a teenager by a woman in the row in front of us at the Swan Lake ballet.

My mum had taken two of my school mates and me to see the ballet – a ‘cultural experience’ – but as soon as it started, a dancer leapt across the stage with tights so pale white and tight you could see the shadow of his penis. My mum and I immediately started giggling hysterically. Then both my friends started giggling until we were all stifling our immature sobs into our palms instead of concentrating on the extremely beautiful dancing. The woman in front of us eventually turned around (fair enough, we were literally unable to deal with watching one man in ballet tights and she had paid the same ticket price as us to watch the show), and hissed ‘for goodness’ sake, be quiet or leave’, which of course made us even more giggly. We were in the wrong here, I do know that, but I also think that our laughter was made worse by our nervousness in trying to be so well-behaved initially.

What I guess I’m saying is that I have often felt I’ve had to be on my very best behaviour whilst watching serious plays, not only in the standard polite and respectful way that shared public spaces warrant, but in a more awkward, intimidated way too. It wasn’t ‘fun’. Often, despite the cushioned seats, it wasn’t even comfortable. It was something I did because my parents told me it was good for me or because it was deemed a ‘cultural exp. . .