Hillbilly Antigone Theater Review
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Company members mentioned in this article: Rick Sims, Heidi Stillman and Philip R Smith by Christopher Piatt tragedy of a woman forced to choose between order and honor. Antigone still buries her dead brother against Creon's will (in this Hatfield-and-McCoy version, said brother is strung up by a noose as a warning to anyone who dares tussle with the church that Creon, a tent revivalist, leads), but other than that, this very loose adaptation is more concerned with personal demons than head-to-head conflict and tragic inevitability. (Creon in particular swears he hears the Lord whispering in his ear the way another certain leader with a bible- thumping drawl does.) The structural trade-off is heavier on knowingly folksy charm than dramatic meat. But Sims's real-deal bluegrass, both melodically haunting and lyrically muscular, is such an effective storytelling mechanism that it cleanly shifts the focus of the event from the classic, unavoidable circumstances that drive Greek drama to the kind of old-fashioned American musical style in which characters sing about what they want. He and wife Stillman prove to be a Gen-X Comden and Green, fusing wildly different American pop traditions from multiple decades. Stillman's buoyant, clipping direction moves with the speed of a holy- roller coaster, sometimes almost a little too quickly for the scenes to stick. But her cast, led by Smith as a shock-headed Creon and Hawkinson as a tough, sparrow-like Antigone with a lemony gospel voice, is an avalanche of tangy, twangy talent. |
