Details

Two brothers die fighting on opposite sides of the civil war in Thebes. When Creon, the new ruler, refuses to bury the brother who was a traitor, Antigone, the rebel's sister, defies Creon by vowing to bury him herself. A translation of Sophocles' Antigone. Originally commissioned to mark the centenary of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 2004, and partly inspired by the war in Iraq, Heaney's captivating and lyrical adaptation lends Sophocles' tragic heroine, Antigone, a 21st century voice. LOST Theatre presents Nobel Prize winning author and poet Seamus Heaney's new verse translation of Sophocles' great tragedy Antigone. The Burial at Thebes honours the separate and irreconcilable claims of its opposed voices, as they enact the ancient but perennial conflict between family and state in a time of crisis, pitching the morality of private allegiance against that of public service. After a tragedy that shows a young woman, very much alive, wilfully embracing death from a sense of what is "right", we thought to add as a makeweight a comedy that sees another young woman already dedicated to death returning to life for reasons that likewise seem "right" to her, namely Christopher Fry's 'A Phoenix Too Frequent'. This brilliant comic verse drama, adapted from an incident found in the 'Satyricon' of Petronius, was first produced in 1946 as one of a spate of verse-dramas after the war. Director Adrian Brown chose this play as his 'test-piece' when on the BBC drama-directors' course back in the mists of time, having to cut it heavily` to fit the allotted time-scale, and it is this same abbreviated version that led to so much for him that he is delighted to revisit now.

Creatives/Company

Author: Seamus Heaney
Company: Lost Theatre
Translation: Seamus Heaney
Director: Adrian Brown