REVIEW: Antigone at USC's Longstreet Theatre by Libby Campbell

Sophocles’ Antigone, written in the 5th Century BCE  is the final chapter of the Oedipus Trilogy. Our story starts in the city of Thebes. Didem Ruhi’s beautiful lamentation provides the perfect beginning to this tragic tale.

Oedipus’ sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, have killed each other in battle during a civil war fought over succession to Oedipus’ throne. Antigone and Ismene, sisters of the fallen soldiers, reside in the city of Thebes where their uncle, Creon, reigns as king by default. Polyneices attacked the city defended by Eteocles. Creon decrees that Polyneices proved himself a traitor, an enemy of the crown, and vows that Polyneices shall remain unburied, to be devoured by dogs and vultures. He warns the citizens that anyone disobeying his command will be punished.

Antigone mourns the loss of her brother and determines to give Polyneices the burial he deserves. Her sister, Ismene, warns her of  the price she will pay for disobeying the crown. Thereby hangs a tale…

Antigone, portrayed by Elaine Werren, is a strong-willed woman determined to stand up to the demands of her uncle. More than once women are referred to as “mere women” whose words are to be dismissed. Antigone refuses to back down from the misogyny of men in power and buries her brother, punishment be damned.

What a marvelous production. Director Lauren Wilson has done an excellent job of emphasizing the feminism inherent in the script. As we all know, the themes explored by the ancient Greek philosophers and playwrights still ring true today (more’s the pity). Wilson brought together a good, strong cast and crew to tell this story. Werren is a strong, unbending Antigone, willing to pay the price of her defiance. Kyleigh McComish’s Ismene is a hesitant heroine at first, begging her sister not to rebel against Uncle Creon then growing sympathetic to Antigone’s decision. Olan Domer gave a strong portrayal of Teresias, the blind seer. His impassioned warning to Creon of the price he will pay should he execute Antigone was one of the most moving scenes of the evening. (His costume and makeup were outstanding).

There is not a weak link to be seen in the cast. Dominic DeLong-Rodgers’ Creon is unbending and unforgiving in his power. He is a commanding presence. The chorus was beautifully choreographed, using their voices and movement to drive the action of the play. Haemon, Creon’s only surviving son and fiancé, is played by Carlos Turner. He brings a rationality and composure to the story and is put in the position of having to choose between loyalty to his father or loyalty to Antigone. He implores his father to listen to the wisdom of others, to no avail. Mel Driggers’ sentry is fearful of Creon yet sympathetic to Antigone; Driggers does a great job of portraying the tug-of-war between these two emotions.

The set is absolutely beautiful. Andy Mills’ scenic design combined with Jim Hunter’s lighting design and Danielle Wilson’s sound design come together to create what to me is the perfect setting. Kristy Hall’s costumes are timeless. My only quibble with this production is with the costuming. The costumes are   timeless, however, when Creon enters in his uniform, barefoot as is the rest of the cast, it looks as if he heard his cue and dashed onstage without putting his shoes on. And that’s the extent of “things I didn’t like about this show.”

Antigone runs October 9 – 11 at 7:30 pm, and October 12 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Longstreet Theatre. The show runs a bit less than 90 minutes without intermission. Tickets range from $15.00 to $22.00. It’s worth every cent. Parking is at a premium, as usual. There is parking beside Drayton Hall; some street parking is available along Greene St.

"Ajax in Iraq" at USC's Longstreet Theatre - a review by Kyle Petersen

 

It’s hard not to applaud Theatre South Carolina for picking Ajax in Iraq to open its 2014-2015 season. Playwright Ellen McLaughlin forges a conceptually complex narrative that intertwines Sophocles’ original Greek tragedy, a play often used as a discussion tool for military veterans and civilians both to explore the deleterious effects of wartime on an individual’s psyche, with the modern-day tale of a female soldier in Iraq who, after demonstrating a heroism similar to that of the storied tragedian’s protagonist, is raped by a superior officer and suffers from PTSD.   In the process, McLaughlin takes on the politics of our invasion and occupation of Iraq, the geopolitics of the region, the philosophical and psychological issues at the heart of all war, America’s treatment of its combat veterans, and the problem of sexual abuse in the military — all extraordinarily relevant issues for a generation of college students who have essentially spent their entire lives with our nation at war. That’s a lot of meat for this almost exclusively undergraduate cast to bite off.

Fortunately, this talented group were game for a challenge. Both Jamie Boller as AJ, the female protagonist, and Jasmine James as the goddess Athena, who narrates both storylines, shows poise and depth in their performances, with the former giving a nuanced treatment of the dramatic emotional swells her role was tasked with, and the latter providing a dynamic treatment to the lengthy monologues that are often weighed down with the heavy expositional load that the character carries. Reginald Leroy Kelly, Jr. was also a standout, with an impressive physical presence that brought Ajax’s bloodthirsty hysteria to life. The undergraduate ensemble cast as a whole dove into the play with verve, and captured the unsettling but time-honored truth that all wars are fought by children.

It’s also worth noting that the scenic design by Andy Mills was quite astute, with a gorgeously craggy set of stones with the fractured geography of Iraq outlined in chalk, and a small covered pit lowered in the center that provided an important literal and symbolic space for Ajax’s descent into madness. Director Peter Duffy’s blocking and Terrance Henderson’s choreography also made expert use of the theater-in-the-round framework, and the entire production team brought an impressive level of thought and poise to the table.

However, the play itself often felt too limited by its wide grasp. The vast majority of the story was told, rather than shown, to the audience, both by Athena as narrator and the Greek chorus of American soldiers. While on a microlevel McLaughlin’s words had power, the net effect felt too much like a rambling, lengthy, unfocused sermon. Relatively little time was actually spent on the most emotionally and thematically fraught element of the play, the details of AJ’s psychological trauma. Instead, lengthy digressions were taken to incorporate a Victorian spin on the history of the Middle East in the 20^th century and what amounted to a PSA about homeless vets. And, while the Ajax story obviously recognizes the long history of soldiers psychologically traumatized by war, I feel as if McLaughlin did a disservice to AJ’s story by pairing it so unproblematically with the Greek tragedy. After all, being raped by a superior officer is categorically and qualitatively different than failing to be properly recognized for one’s efforts, and apart from actually staging the rape, the play had relatively little to say on the subject, a pity given the enormity of the problem - women who served in the war were more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than die in combat.

That said, the play is littered with powerful moments, among them the deft explication of how soldiers mostly end up fighting for love of one another more than any national, ideological, or moral reason, and a powerfully staged rape scene that placed the actors across the stage from one another and captured a cold, alienating sense of aloneness surrounding that act of violence that’s difficult to connote with a literal depiction. (The play also wisely closed on the lit images of soldier’s graves with the actors taking discrete bows from the edges—a sobering way to keep the focus on the issues rather than the theatrics of the performance.)

There’s no doubt that the subject matter and staging of such traumatic stories are worthwhile, and many will likely leave these performances with a heightened sense of our nation’s collective failure to grapple with the immense psychological damage our decade at arms has caused a generation of American soldiers. But I also can’t help but see the play as a bit too heavy-handed in its polemics and remiss in its elision of the extraordinary gender inequities in today’s military. These detractions limit the ability of the play to contribute to an important, underserved conversation around these issues. Despite McLaughlin’s considerable gifts, Ajax in Iraq will always feel like a bit of a failure because of that alone.

~ Kyle Petersen

Show times for Ajax in Iraq are 8pm Wednesdays through Saturdays, with additional 3pm matinees on Sunday, October 5 and Saturday, October 11.  Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors 60+, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm, beginning Friday, September 26th.  Longstreet Theatre is located at 1300 Greene St.

Review: In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play

They got chills, they’re multiplying, and they’re losing control, ’cause the power they’re supplying, it’s electrifying. But that’s not Sandy and Danny from the show playing a few blocks away, but rather the characters in Sarah Ruhl’s Tony-nominated play In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, which opened this past Friday at Trustus Theatre.

While not for all tastes or audiences, this show provides, dare I say, a stimulating and thought-provoking evening of theatrical entertainment, thanks to its talented cast and production staff.

Set in the late Victorian era, a time when scientific advances are outpacing societal ones, In the Next Room focuses on Mrs. Givings (her given name is Catherine, but almost all characters are referred to formally, even among husband and wife) and her husband, a brilliant and dedicated doctor who treats women for “hysteria.” However hard to believe in today’s (relatively) enlightened world, hysteria is basically a catch-all term for “acting crazy, like a woman,” and encompasses moodiness, depression, frustration, argumentativeness, self-doubt, sexual dysfunction, and even standing up for oneself. Dr. Givings nobly attempts to treat women (and the occasional man) via new technology, especially electric vibrators, which he believes relieve pressure, i.e. via orgasm.

This would seem awfully far-fetched, and on the level of burlesque, if it were not historically accurate. As Mrs. Givings, Sumner Bender takes on the complex leading role that she has long deserved. Using a sort of refined, Katharine Hepburn-like delivery, she is both regal and vulnerable, passionate yet repressed. Her rebelliousness manifests as no more than natural doubt as to her maternal abilities, the desire for reciprocal love in her marriage, and occasional “crazy” moments of running outside to make snow angels. In other words, she’s a normal, modern woman who finds herself in the 1880′s.

From the advance press and the set-up above, I assumed her husband would be depicted as a controlling chauvinist. Steve Harley, however, instead portrays Dr. Givings as a clinical and detached man of science, clearly in love with his wife, but a product of both his time and his own nature. Harley’s delivery is quite under-stated and therefore very believable and realistic, especially when the dialogue sometimes becomes very formal and polysyllabic. If that name looks familiar, he was in most of the great Trustus productions in the 90′s, and it’s a treat to see him here.

Among the supporting cast, the standout is Daniel Gainey, who plays a depressed artist who turns to the good doctor for help. “Hysteria is very rare in men,” Harley notes, “but then he is an artist.” Gainey’s bio indicates a background primarily in opera and operatic musical theatre, but he is quite the dramatic (and comedic) performer. He takes the prize for mastery of the flowery, 19th century verbal style, and his general demeanor and appearance really make you think he’s stepped right out of the pages of a Henry James novel.

Alexis Doktor’s costumes, the ultra-realistic and detailed scenic design by Andy Mills, and the detailed (and functioning) props by Nate Herring all contribute to the authentic period feel. I must note that one prop in particular provoked about 20 seconds of increasingly uncontrolled laughter from the audience on opening night (a phenomenon I can’t recall hearing/seeing ever before) and the cast gamely and proficiently held until everything died back down.

Director Ellen Douglas Schlaefer gets kudos for wrangling the script’s fairly intricate dialogue and making it all sound natural, and for creating nice tableaus on stage, when various things are happening in various rooms. In spite of some comic moments relating to the very notion of people using vibrators to solve their psychological problems, some of this play’s themes may be a little over the head of the average theatre-goer, who may just be looking for a good laugh. I was reminded in many ways of some of the social commentary in the work of George Bernard Shaw, and of the lush, period films of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. The first act sometimes drags in between the funny parts, and while Gainey’s entrance in the second act considerably livens up the proceedings, things sometimes get awfully talky; with intermission, the show runs almost two and a half hours, and I would have been happy with about thirty minutes edited out. Still there are some thoughtful and important discussions on the nature of motherhood, marriage, and the inter-connectivity of art, science and humanity. At one point Gainey observes “I have loved enough women to know how to paint. If I had loved fewer I would be an illustrator; if I had loved more, I would be a poet.” You just don’t find more eloquent lines that that, and if someone told me that Oscar Wilde wrote that, I’d believe it.

Ruhl could have turned her play into a more overt feminist statement, or a broader sex comedy, but wisely takes the middle ground, which allows for a more satisfying conclusion. The more one is an enthusiast of history, or literature, or women’s and gender studies, the more one will embrace this production. For me, the attraction and enjoyment was much simpler: Ellen Douglas Schlaefer is back directing and Steve Harley is back acting at Trustus; Sumner Bender and Ellen Rodillo-Fowler (as another patient) get juicy roles on stage; mainstays Elena Martinez-Vidal and Stann Gwynn do their usual excellent work; everything is quite posh and spiffy, from the dialogue to the set itself. Which is more than good enough for me.

In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play runs three more weeks, through Sat. May 26th, including another matinee on Sun. May 20th. Call the box office at (803) 254-9732 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel