Xntigone review culture wars rage before Freedom Day in Thebes – The Guardian

A defiant young woman imprisoned in a perspex cube no longer wants to be called Antigone. Darren Murphys new adaptation of the Greek tragedy seems similarly ambivalent about its origins, as if unsure whether to shrug off the original entirely. In his reduced version, subtitled after Sophocles, the city of Thebes has been ravaged by a dangerous virus. During this state of emergency, Xntigone (Eloise Stevenson) has joined a resistance movement against her uncle Creons government. About to proclaim Freedom Day, Creon (Michael James Ford) promises to release her if she denounces her dead brother as a traitor.

Emma Jordans sleek production for Belfasts Prime Cut and the Mac has a futuristic edge, with Ciaran Bagnalls design suggesting an art gallery where seductive technology enables new forms of surveillance and control. In an intense confrontation between uncle and niece, each accuses the other of weaponising the virus. Bristling with references to culture wars, including plans to destroy statues of dead statesmen, intergenerational conflict is the central theme here, powerfully portrayed. Xntigones disgust at Creons cynicism is expressed in Stevensons physical revulsion, while Fords tone is smoothly supercilious, mocking her new playground name.

Amid the focus on political spin, the central drama of conscience drifts far out of sight through over complication. Issues are piled on, from biological warfare to corruption, with the Oedipus family backstory adding layers of murkiness. Threatening to release a lethal new strain of the virus, Xntigone says: Sometimes you need to destroy the world because the world is broken. It is a nihilistic credo, bleakly shifting the moral balance of the plays arguments, so that the only choices left are between different degrees of destructiveness.

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Xntigone review culture wars rage before Freedom Day in Thebes - The Guardian