Hot on the heels of the highly successful Spring Awakening, performed at The Rondo last week, Bath Theatre Academy second-year students present Antigone.
It is hard to believe that Sophocles is thought to have written the original around 460BC and here it is as searing and relevant as ever.
Antigone wants to bury her brother who has been left to rot on a hillside following a bloody war.
Creon, the King and her Uncle, forbids it on pain of death. Antigone honours her brother and is prepared to face the consequences.
Creon ignores all advice from those around him and enforces his brutal law which leaves him alone too late to realise the advice was right and his actions wrong.
The questions of loyalty, integrity and challenging of authority fit this young company well.
The production is updated and the text generally survives the translation although some of the monologues affect the energy of this strong production.
Set 50 years in the future, against a stark, static set by Roisin Martindale, the cast are wholly committed to the intensity of this one-act piece with many of them on stage throughout, directed by Kate Pasco.
Summer Parker is a fiercely strong Antigone; capturing her spirit and determination to honour her family above Creon’s law.
Issie Sallows has supreme comic timing and delivery equally showing great depth and maturity in the closing scenes.
The whole cast is strong, combining physical theatre with naturalistic exchanges.
Yves Morris as Creon alongside Ethan James and Dylan Maguire, Alicia Pollard, Leah- Anne Clemas, Kitty Lyell, Emily Webber and Nem Bengry- Howell provide equally impressive and engaging support.
This is a good production from the BTA students and reflects the depth of talent on this excellent course.
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Reviewer: Petra Schofield
Antigone, translated by Don Taylor and directed by Kate Pasco, is showing at the egg theatre in Bath until Saturday 8th February.
For more information and tickets, visit the Theatre Royal website.
