Word: antigonae
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...does not have to extol a radical party line to appreciate the avowedly political Passion of Antigona Perez. Only those who disfavor heroism and unalloyed democracy could find the play ideologically objectionable. Based on the Greek tragedy Antigone, the story is set in a modern Latin American distatorship where Antigona Perez has defied the State and now waits execution. The rape, tortune and brutality that is a way of life in such repressive regimes is minimal on stage. In fact, the play asks one to raise one's consciousness only so far as to accept that every action...
Mira Nair as Creon's wife Pilar also gives Antigona plenty to react to. Vain, evil and ambitious, Nair survives what must be poorly translated lines with the proper doses of viper and Eva Peron...
...ALTHOUGH ANTIGONA can be identified as all good and completely human, there is no catharsis in The Passion of Antigona Perez. This absence is partially the result of technical flaws. The lines are not memorable; the staging is mishandled. In the prison cell, Creon paces to within a foot of Antigona, who is squatting in defiance. It is unlikely that a man in Creon's position would not have kicked her. Further: the crowd shuffles around forgettably and the yellow journalists fling themselves across stage in a clumsy flock. Their flutter emphasizes the parody but dissipates the tension...
...even ignoring the shortcomings of the production, catharsis cannot occur in the show. Unlike Sophocles's creation, Antigona is not denying societal obligations to hold supreme her familial responsibilities. The Greek Antigone refused to acknowledge that there might be political consequences to her actions. The Latin American Antigona makes a political statement. Antigone acts in disregard of the state; Antigona acts to change it. Calling Creon by his name and not his title, she refuses to admit that the State might be embodied in one man rather than in the relationship between men. Antigona insists on fighting fear, the "putrid...
...almost cried when the journalists announced Antigona's death. First one reported the local news: "The criminal Antigona Perez...finally kept her date with the law." Then another reported on the international scene: "The famous designer Pierre Cardin has announced he will begin a new line of men's fashions." It would have been useless to cry. I could not have been purged. The ending confronts us too constantly--even on page nine of The New York Times...