BRING OPERA AND GREEK DRAMA TO YOUR LIVING ROOM
There are signs that theatres and groups are making efforts to get moving again. A concert performance of Puccini’s La Bohème will be streamed by the Irish National Opera from the stage of the Bord Gáis Theatre on March 13, with Celine Byrne, Anna Devin, Merünas Vitulslis and John Molloy in the main roles.
Tickets: Early Bird, €20, Standard €23, Concession €15. Details and booking: irishnationalopera.ie
■ The Abbey Theatre has just appointed Caitríona McLaughlin, associate director since 2017, as it’s new artistic director, and Mark O’Brien, currently director of the Axis Ballymun, as its new executive director.
They replace Graham McGregor and Neil Murray, who have been in charge for the past five years and who have taken a lot of flak over the number of co-productions they have entertained, which raised questions about the Abbey’s remit and its actor employment policies.
■ It was touch and go whether the Feis Ceoil could go ahead this year, but despite problems and cancellations, there will be 136 competitions held online from March 15–26.
All details at feisceoil.ie.
Meanwhile, I’ve been having a look at what’s available online from the English National Theatre. Some productions were available free online during the past few months, mostly for a strictly limited time. But many are available for longer periods for payment. You can rent for three days, to watch as much as you want: or pay for a month’s viewing or an annual subscription. They have the advantage that you’re not paying for just one production, but for whatever you can watch within the time you’ve paid for. Details below.
There’s quite a range of productions from the recent, as well as some Shakespearean and Greek plays and archive productions.
I recently viewed a stunning production of Antigone by Sophocles that was a reminder of the power of ancient Greek drama. Antigone was written 2,500 years ago, but its subject matter and language are so dramatic and the production so powerful, that it could have been written for our own times. The production has none of the stilted language that you often get in some translations, and it’s done in modern dress, but with none
‘Some productions are available free online or you can rent for a set period’
of the intrusive stuff like modern political symbols, that can be irritating as well as patronising. Yet it’s very true to the original.
Antigone is one of the earliest dramatic statements about natural law, the law of the gods and of God, that applies to all humanity, as opposed to civil law, that’s specific to its time and place. It’s about the clash between the rights of the individual and the dictates of government. The setting is Thebes, where a bloody civil war has just been brought to a conclusion.
The brothers of Antigone have fought on opposite sides; both have been killed. Their uncle, Creon, is now king of Thebes, and has brought in draconian laws to crush further revolts. He decrees that the nephew who fought to defend Thebes against the local invader should be given all the honours of a proper burial. But the body of his brother, Polyneices, is to be left where it fell, to rot in the sun or be eaten by the scavenging dogs or birds. The punishment for anyone attempting to bury him, is death.
But Antigone will not allow her brother to be dishonoured in a way that defies all the basic laws of humanity. Captured for performing Polyneices’ funeral rites, and brought before the furious Creon, she defends her action, and the verbal battle between the two of them is the central action of the play, while others are also brought into the visceral debate.
Creon is the epitome of the strong leader who has made a decision that he believes essential to the peace of the kingdom. To back down, even for his niece, will show him to be weak, putting the interests of a relative before the country. And yet not all citizens agree, and the wisdom of the blind Tiresias declares that adherence to an unjust law can result in disaster. The production leaves it to the viewers to make their own deductions about the relevance to modern times without spelling things out.
The performances by Jodie Whitaker (Antigone) and Christopher Eccleston (Creon) are riveting, in a display of verbal fireworks that makes you realise the value of genuinely great theatre.
■ Subscription rates: Rent (3 days) €7.53, Monthly €11.39, Yearly
€114.04. Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time, see ntathome.com