Notes on Antigone

From the Antigone playbill by Forum Theatre Dramaturg Hannah Hessel.

The memory is very clear: me at maybe 15 years old, sitting on my bedroom floor reading Antigone. It was not the Sophocles version I was reading, though I had studied that at school. It was a version of Antigone that spoke directly to me. It pulled me, as an American teenager, into a tragedy that seemed close. I read Jean Anouilh’s adaptation over and over until Antigone’s words were in my head. I was caught.

Antigone was, to my teenage mind, everything I wanted to be. She was smart, quirky, and she got the boy even though she wasn’t the prettiest. And she was strong, so strong that she put her life second to her beliefs. So strong that she would stand and fight, and yet she was human—I could feel her pain. In Simone Fraisse’s book Le Mythe d’Antigone, she is called “the daughter of the Revolution.” Antigone is the ultimate rebel with a cause.

Iphigenia 2.0 Reading

IPHIGENIA 2.0
By Charles Mee
Directed by Hannah Hessel

Monday, December 17th 8pm
H Street Playhouse
1365 H Street NE, Washington DC

FREE ADMISSION, Donations accepted.

Featuring Forum company members Patrick Bussink, Alexander Strain, Brent Lowder, Michael Dove and Fiona Blackshaw,
Also with Lee Liebeskind, Helen Pafumi, Nigel Reed, Gwen Grastorf, Jonathan Church, Simone Zvi and more.

As a part of Forum’s new OpenForum program we are excited to present a reading of Charles Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 this Monday, December 17. This reading is a part of a series that expands on our current production of ANTIGONE, and along with post show discussions help to create an inclusive theatrical experience. The play by Euripides, set in the world today, in which a great imperial power steps into the world to go to war–taking an action so wrong that it sets the empire on the road to complete self-destruction. Proving, as Agamemnon himself says on the brink of the Trojan war, “we see from the histories of empires that none will last forever and all are brought down finally not by others but by themselves.”

For an interview with Charles Mee about the play, visit Studio 360.

Welcome to our ‘blog

Welcome to the Forum Theatre Blog, an online companion to our new OpenForum discussion series.  This is a place to read about current productions, including interviews with the creative teams, director’s notes, backstage news, design sketches and exclusive photographs.  We also want to give you a stronger sense of who we are and what we do through a series of entries about the company by the company members.  And lastly, we will use this space to open up discussions on general theatre issues and how they relate to the world around us.

We’re called Forum Theatre for a reason—because we want our work to spark a dialogue on the important ideas and issues of today and how it relates to us and our community.  We look forward to the discussion, both at the theatre and out here in the cyberworld. 

Stay tuned for Artistic Director Michael Dove’s director’s notes on our current show Antigone, running at the H St. Playhouse through December 30th and information on our OpenForum reading series.
reading series.