One of the quintessential works of ancient Greek theatre is a getting a contemporary update courtesy of the team at Malthouse Theatre. Beginning Friday, August 21, the company will stage Sophocles' Antigone, a devastating portrait of grief, duty and civil disobedience that, like all the best works from the period, retains an emotional and social resonance nearly two-and-a-half thousand years after it was first performed.
Rising star Emily Milledge appears as the eponymous character, a young woman caught in a bitter battle with her community leaders over her right to bury her traitor brother. Adapted by writer and actor Jane Montgomery Griffiths and director Adena Jacobs, the Malthouse production will transport the material to a dystopian present day, eschewing Sophocles' questionable representation of gender in favour of a more timely examination of political fear-mongering and social control.