Juliette Binoche, photo credit: Stephanie Berger

 

                                             by Deirdre Donovan

 

Sophokles’ Antigone might be old as the hills but with Belgian director Ivo van Hove and French actress Juliette Binoche teaming up in a new modern-dress version, the play gains cache and interest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2015 Next Wave Festival.

 

This touring production is a very well-oiled machine.  It debuted at the Grand Theatre de Luxembourg in February 2015 and then touched down at London’s Barbican with other stops at Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, Recklinghausen, and the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival, before alighting in New York.

 

Academy Award winner Binoche is in the titular role and is the real draw for this revampedAntigone.  I overheard an audience member saying before the lights went up:  “I don’t know the play but want to see Binoche on stage.”  Well, that pretty much explains the excitement and the crowds swarming into this theater event.  One might not know a jot about Sophokles or how he wowed the Greeks in writing Antigone in 441 B.C.  but folks of all ages do want to see Binoche, best-known for playing Hana in The English Patient and her memorable turns in Chocolat andThree Colours: Blue.

 

This production has all the earmarks of a Hove production.  No padding of the Greek tale but plenty of inventive touches.  Most conspicuously, the chorus has been divvied up among the cast.  No, I’m not sure it works.  True, the Greek chorus is notoriously awkward for directors to stage.  Hove, however, might have nailed it better if he had kept the chorus intact.  Instead, he dilutes its power by reassigning it, helter-skelter, to various cast members.

 

But Greek tragedy doesn’t live by the chorus alone!  And, Binoche, wearing no make-up and dressed in a plain, black outfit, ensures that this production remains alive—and on keel.  “I was caught in an act of perfect piety,” she says at a pivotal moment.  And Binoche imbues the line with much poignancy and beauty.  Others in the cast deliver too.  Patrick O’Kane does a fine job playing Kreon, a ruler who refuses to be “bested by a woman.”  Kirsty Bushell is the quintessential voice of reason as Ismene.  Edward Cook is well-cast as Kreon’s son Haimon, and Kathryn Pogson inhabits Eurydike with a regal air.

 

No complaints about the production values.  Jan Versweyveld’s minimalist set and lighting are masculine and strictly no-nonsense.  Versweyveld creates ultra-modern décor with a handsome leather couch built right into the set.   There’s one image dominating the performing area:  a large glowing disc that casts a strong light and looks as ominous as the single-eye of Cyclops. Then there’s some visual wizardry in the monochrome videoscapes, with shifting images of deserts, cityscapes, and aerial views.   The total effect is chilling, bleak, and ever-so-lonely.

 

The big questions percolate through the play and can tie one’s mind in knots:  Is Antigone insane for defying Kreon and burying her dead brother Polyneikes?  Should one follow one’s conscience?  Or bow to civic duty?  The play has long raised these difficult questions—and this production re-ignites them for everybody to ponder.

 

Hove is no stranger at BAM.  In 2012, his epic Roman Plays, adapted from Shakespeare’s Roman works, was brimming with bold innovation and contemporary flavor.  And, in 2014, he mounted Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in a new version.  So there’s no doubt that Hove is making his mark in New York and major international venues.

 

Long viewed as a theatrical trailblazer, Hove seems to be—at last--embraced by the theater community at large.  Indeed his View from the Bridge, already a West End hit and Olivier Award winner, will be opening on Broadway in mid-November.

 

Returning to Antigone, I have a few reservations on Hove’s handling of the play.  But Hove has assembled a fine cast and creative team and manages to make the old classic sing, even if a few of the notes are off-key.

 

Through October 4^th.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music, at the Harvey Theater

2015 Next Wave Festival

651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn

For more information about events at BAM:  visit www.bam.org