Portrait of a rebellious

Dawn is breaking on Thebes, the famous Greek city that saw a succession Oedipus on his throne, and his two son Eteocles and Polynices, who ended up killing when Eteocles, in power for barely a year, refused to give the reins of power to his brother despite the contract between them stipulating that both were to rule one year each in turn. Creon, their uncle, became the new king since his accession to the throne and allow him to establish a new law which forbade all inhabitants to celebrate the funeral of Polynices. The body of the latter is indeed remained uncovered under the walls of Thebes, exposed to thank you jackals and crows. Creon thereby intends to make an example of Polynices unworthy prince to obtain the crown, an example of rebellion should be condemned and repressed.

Dawn is breaking over the city still asleep, but Antigone did not sleep and just returned to the palace by a back door. She returned from a nocturnal expedition and confesses to his sister Ismene, too stricken with insomnia, she just covered with a little soil the body of Polynices in defiance penalty incurred for infringement of the law Creon, that of the death sentence ...

Moreover, in this room realizes Jean Anouilh a modern transposition of ancient tragedy written by Sophocles. The characters are people of the twentieth century, specifically in 1944, the year of its first performance at the Theatre de l'Atelier, in a staging of André Barsacq. They wear jeans, smoke cigarettes, cars and circulate a freer language in classical tragedy. Nevertheless, the rule of three units is strictly observed by the author. Unity of action is organized around the transgressive act committed twice by the eponymous heroine, the unit of time is also applied, as the plot unfolds in twenty-four hours. As for the unity of place, it is the king's palace.

Anouilh, apparently, intends to highlight in this story all the springs of tragedy: that of fatum, since the fate of Antigone is fixed from the debut of the Prologue, the young woman must die and "She knows"; the dilemma that touches each of the main protagonists, as Antigone Creon, whose dialogue is based on the problem of the choice of saying "yes" or "no" reason of state; and finally that of ontology: Antigone is indeed a rebellious woman because she only obeys his conscience and assumes fully developed to brave death; Creon obeys his man to function and, despite his attachment to his niece, does not hesitate to sentence after still urged to renounce beforehand that it considers itself as logically a headlong rush.

Finally, to this tragic dimension that combines the absurd if one refers to the words and gestural soldiers who, throughout, are content to obey orders and do not change their habits of thought and behavior. The bloody denouement does not disturb them, they Diners tuck to begin a game of cards.