After Sophocles’ Tragedy: Antigone

Translated from Ancient Greek by Antanas DAMBRAUSKAS.

It seems that until recently we lived in a time when we thought we had learned the lessons history had taught us. Yet today, the worst-case scenarios described in textbooks are returning to reality. Where should we turn for answers? Where should we look when history—not so distant—tries to become our future?

Born in the cradle of democracy, Ancient Greece, Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone” reveals an eternal clash of values, a conflict between two political truths, on which director Kamilė Gudmonaitė turns her gaze.

“Although Europe remains a bloc of liberal democracies today, we can see an attraction to ideological alternatives. The liberal order is losing its emotional weight; we see disillusionment with it and even with democracy itself. Globalisation is perceived as a threat, economic inequality is growing, and so more and more people are turning to populist right-wing parties that offer ‘clear enemies’ and ‘simple solutions’—familiar epics and their heroes that require no lengthy and ‘ineffectual’ discussions. All this is set against a backdrop of geopolitical crisis and ongoing wars. I think that here the front line is first and foremost not a physical boundary, but a clash between the ideological ways of thinking that shape the world. As in our production, Sophocles’ ‘Antigone’ becomes the front line between Europe’s ideologies,” says the director.

The production brings Antigone and Creon into conflict, two characters who represent different directions. Antigone fights for her convictions and her brother’s honour, while the ruler Creon demands that the laws and public order be upheld. The tragedy feels more relevant than ever, opening up an intellectual cross-section of Europe and showing how the search for truth is set against its construction. But in our many-voiced world, can we still speak of only two truths?

To paraphrase Bonnie Honig, a professor of contemporary culture, media and political science who has examined “Antigone” from a political perspective: antiquity does not become the present; antiquity exists in relation to it. So what is that relationship today? In a time of crisis, can a truth exist as we knew it before? Finally, if discussion is the engine of democracy, why is it still so difficult for us to talk?