Scottish Daily Mail

Beguiling Binoche and a seriously good tragedy

- Reviews by Quentin Letts

MY heart sank slightly as we all took our seats on Wednesday night for the final preview of Juliette Binoche’s turn as Greek tragedy heroine antigone. a party of sugared-up teenage girls arrived in the rows just in front of me. Oh no, I thought, they’ll never keep quiet for all 110 minutes (no interval) of the show.

how wrong I was. although the girls were noisy beforehand, once the action started they paid attention and remained gripped throughout.

Good on them. and good on this partly european- produced version of t he Sophocles tragedy, which is bound for the edinburgh Festival ( it is at the Barbican this month before touring on the continent and will end its travels in the U.S. in October).

Mademoisel­le Binoche may be the big draw, but there is more to it than that. Director Ivo van hove goes for a moderndres­s approach which, with anne Carson’s i nformal new translatio­n, gives it a sprightly tone. Not rushed, though.

the thing is played to the rhythm of a doleful, tolling bell and there are few moments when voices are raised or when anyone moves at a fast pace. Fate flows at the steady pace of lava.

King Kreon (as they spell his name here) of thebes has ordered that no one should bury the corpse of the disgraced Polynices. Polynices’ grieving sister antigone ignores the king’s edict.

Kreon sentences her to be locked in a tomb. She hangs herself and this drives her lover haimon — son of Kreon — to his death. When Kreon’s wife l earns what has happened, she, too, tops herself. Foolish Kreon. the show starts with antigone walking i nto a strong wind which blows tumbleweed­s i n her path. She i gnores t hem, black robes swirling round her grief- stricken shoulders. Shades of a Scottish Widows advert, arguably.

the Barbican stage is broad, distant. Some of the actors could do with upping their volume levels a notch or two, but the restrained delivery forces the audience to pay rapt attention.

Photograph­ic images of arid landscapes are played on a large backdrop which has a big circle cut in it. this sphere moves — the sun moving across the heavens. Occasional organ chords sound.

at the front of the stage is a l ow- slung area where the non-speaking actors can rest on sofas, listening, chorus-like, to what is being said.

Patrick O’Kane’s Kreon is a dome-headed technocrat, a modern, managerial figure rather than an ancient-Greek warrior. his despotism is that of an office politician trying to impose his executive personalit­y.

In Kirsty Bushell (who plays antigone’s sister, Ismene) a nd Fi nbar Lynch ( t he blind seer teiresias), the production has two of our strongest actors — distinctiv­e, beguiling voices.

and Mlle Binoche? She has undeniable stage presence, a litheness, an intimacy with the audience, yet the perf o r mance i s not yet AN quite right.

Antigone ’S despair, her anger, her proud refusal to do Kreon’s bidding, are at present done by too obvious rote ra t her t han f r om s ome inner furnace.

It can’t be easy to play such a deep-gutted role in a foreign tongue (she speaks english with a touch of a glottal stop at ti mes) or i n such an intriguing­ly unhistrion­ic production, yet she needs somehow to reach further into her emotional gubbins.

all the same, this is a fine, unusual, teenagersi­lencing show.

as it ends, the citizens of thebes re t urn to t heir business, typing letters and attending to chores while a zippy l i ttle tune sets our ankles tripping. Kreon may have wrecked his own world, but life goes on.

 ?? N O T N E K M A R T S I R T : e r u t c i P ?? Stage presence: Juliette Binoche as Antigone
N O T N E K M A R T S I R T : e r u t c i P Stage presence: Juliette Binoche as Antigone
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom