I rhetorically asked if she performed the play in her O'Hare accent (from the TV show Preacher).
The text felt very pantomime like & childish, the play itself very abridged, it's not clear from the edition I have if there was an interval or what the run time would be. Relevant to the time of its writing, Heaney also adds in "Bushisms", referencing George W. Bush and his approach to leadership, drawing a parallel between him and the character of Creon. From the first time I read it when I was 13 years-old I felt an affinity. Though we have authors like George RR Martin who aren't afraid to kill off our favourite characters, a lot of books I read seem to all be afraid to really upset the reader with a pinch of reality and death.A nicely done translation with an excellent note by Heaney at the end that explained how he worked on this volume. Heaney may not be a dramatist, but the way in which this story is presented poetically is riveting. He keeps the play format, and some of it is really, really good poetry, though it threw me off that as usual with Heaney, there was a lot of colloquial language. This is less of a translation and more of a version: I wouldn't use it for scholarly study of the play itself, though it would be interesting in studying modern rewritings and retellings of ancient myths. The read is an emotional rolAs part of an assignment, this book found its way into my reading list. This is a sad story of a new king who won't allow an opposing warrior a proper burial.
Her love for her brother will not allow her to see him disgraced in public. / He’ll know his father doomed his bride to death.) This is, sadly is still a live issue in Ireland, 15 years after it was originally written, and indeed in a different way, a century after the events of the Irish struggles before and after independence, which was the cauldron in which the Abbey Theatre was formed, on the centenary of which this play was first staged. The read is an emotional roller coaster from joyous to tragic.
Haney uses the cadences of the Gaelic poetry of the Irishwoman Eibhlin Dubh for the speakers and chorus. Most women in this time refused to disobey men, especially royalty, but this book included a women who was rebellious in a good way. While the overall structure and technicality follow that of Sophocles, with concepts like parodos, episodes, rhesis, stichomythia and so on, there are also different registers of the language used. I like the messages hidden in the seemingly simple structure and dialogue.
Such is the case with The Burial at Thebes…
Sophocles's story still resonates today in how power can be used and abused. She is sealed within a tomb and left to die. He doesn’t stretch for power or beauty, nor does he employ any tricks to make the work more relevant—no contemporary interjections of cultural references or use of anachronistic elements (the stage directions make no references to any time or place so it is ancient Thebes nor does he us any emblematic phrase making, slogans or specific contemporary phrases).
The king, Creon, brands Polyneices a traitor and decrees that his body remain unburied, “a carcass for the dogs and birds to feed on.”Out of respect for her brother, Antigone defies the edict, setting in motion the tragedy and raising the ideas that keep the play enduringly vital — of what is good versus what is legal, of our obligation to ourselves versus our duty to society.And while the director, Charlotte Moore, is skilled (her Those actors are otherwise capable. I loved the accessibility of story, the ease of reading, the smoothness and sometimes lyricism of the language. The language in The Burial at Thebes reminds me of Heaney’s earliest poetry collections, Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark, crisp lines with simple, unadorned words and phrases. My wife dryly noted that Jesse Custer would've kicked the shit out of Creon. Colin Lane, as the guard, provides a nice comic turn.At about 70 minutes, “The Burial at Thebes” barrels toward its conclusion with a brutal certainty. The chorus is that of an ancient Greek play with rhythm to be sung or danced, and Creon's speech is in the iambic meter, whereas the Guard's speech is, for example, in colloquial English. There are no reviews yet. Rebekah Brockman’s Antigone is palpably enraged and defiant, while Paul O’Brien embodies a stubborn and overconfident Creon.
I read it out loud, which made it more meaningful.