Harvard’s Office for the Arts, Classics Department, and Classics Club, in partnership with the Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Consulate General of Greece in Boston will present Sophocles’ classic drama “Antigone.” The brilliant work of the ancient Greek tragedian, written around 442 BC, will be performed on Sunday, April 29th, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts, as the final event of the annual ARTS FIRST Festival.
Spectators will be invited to reexamine one of the most significant dramatic texts in the history of the world literature celebrating the power of female agency through a combination of professional actors, faculty and student performances in one of the largest classical amphitheaters in America.
The 2,500-year-old tragic tale of Antigone, a young woman, who, burying her brother Polynices, defied the laws of the state and her uncle Creon, the ruler of Thebes, focuses on a timeless theme: the conflict between individual conscience and public authority. The play, produced by Ben Roy and directed by Mitchell Polonsky, will narrate a plethora of tragic events in its effort to expose other major themes, such as fate, law, and mortality. According to Sophocles’ masterpiece that fully depicts the ancient Greek worldview, the sins of fathers are inherited to their children. The conflict between divine law and state law, as well as the notion that death may be a favorable alternative to an unbearable life, will also rise in the play.
The epic collision of Antigone and Creon for the fate of Polynices’ dead body, will also uncover other crucial human matters, such as the struggle between righteous and legal, male and female, old and new, private and social, existence and mortality, as well as human and divine.
Info
“Antigone”
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Harvard Stadium, 79 North Harvard Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02134
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public