Antigone

Description

When Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone's unruly brother, Antigone's anger quickly turns to defiance. Creon condemns her to a torturous death: she's to be buried alive. Acclaimed playwright Roy Williams takes Sophocles' play and, by placing it into a contemporary setting, brings this classic tale vividly to life. A timeless story about loyalty and truth, about how we make meaning out of life and death, and what in the end really does matter. Roy Williams's adaptation of Antigone received its world premiere at Derby Theatre, in a co-production between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre and Theatre Royal, Stratford East, before going on a national tour. This new, edited edition is published for the first time in Methuen Drama's Plays for Young People series, aimed at 16-18 year olds.

Roy Williams, OBE, worked as an actor before turning to writing full-time in 1990. He graduated from Rose Bruford in 1995 with a first class BA Hons degree in Writing and participated in the 1997 Carlton Television screenwriter's course. The No Boys Cricket Club (Theatre Royal, Stratford East, 1996) won him nominations for the TAPS Writer of the Year Award 1996 and for New Writer of the Year Award 1996 by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. He was the first recipient of the Alfred Fagon Award 1997 for Starstruck (Tricycle Theatre, London, 1998), which also won the 31st John Whiting Award and the EMMA Award 1999. Lift Off (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1999) was the joint winner of the George Devine Award 2000.

Riotously comic and makes a strong case for its contemporary parallels. * Guardian * Williams' transposition works well. For young audiences, all too aware of gang-related killings, it demonstrates vividly that the great classical plays are anything but remote, that the profound questions at their core about human behaviour are still with us - in this case, that revenge, summary justice and unbending codes of honour may seem to offer answers but in fact simply perpetuate grief. * Financial Times *