I do not regret buying a ticket and seeing Antigone. It is a worthwhile experience. That said, this is not a production I like. The translation is too casual, parts of the set (bookcases, faucets) are barely used or not at all, video behind the actors seems mostly unrelated to the action, and the loud vocal music at the very end also seemed out of place. The acting is good (though the actors are VERY hard to hear) as we expect but the text causes them to utter lines that produce laughs when the moment is tragic. Yes, some laughs break the tension appropriately early on, but in the last 10 minutes, no – this is a tragedy.

The updated script was lively. I disagree that Creon’s character was trivialized — on the contrary, he was made fully human in his complexity. This was NOT a simple good vs bad rendition,not the least because Creon was brilliantly played… and, unfortunately, because Antigone was not. Binoche does not have the powers required of a stage actress. She played Antigone in an old, melodramatic style that did not match the other performances or the script.

On the up side, the updated script offered up humor, wonderfully delivered via The Guard. On the down side, Binoche clearly couldn’t project (it was downright painful when she tried), leading the whole performance to be miked. This seriously detracted from the strength of the production itself, which overall was visually stunning but sonically stilted.

I enjoyed it. But I love ancient Greek plays and ancient Greek myth, legend and history (if perhaps we have a combination of them in the Trojan war story). The actress who played Hecuba did a good job, and so did the actor who played Poseidon. I am fairly familiar with the myths and legends behind the Trojan war but I still learned more about them, especially that Odysseus had been a suitor for Helen but took Penelope instead. I was not sure if all the names were pronounced correctly but I could be wrong and that’s not very important. (In the movie Troy they pronounced Menelaus as men-allow-us, interestingly enough.) I thought it was worth the money, at least for the cheap seat I had. And, again, I’m a big fan of ancient Greek drama and ancient Greek myth. Ancient Greek drama is not often performed these days (there was one at Stratford last year, Elektra), so it was a bit of a treat. Thanks to UMS for this performance.