Antigone had a great opening weekend at ACC! If you haven’t seen it yet, this weekend is your last chance. Buy tickets here.

The director, Marcus McQuirter, took a moment to talk to me about his perspective on Antigone, the casting process and the technique involved to pull off a classical play.

For McQuirter, Antigone is his favorite of the celebrated Theban plays by Sophocles. The protagonist is a huge selling point for McQuirter. “There’s something about really strong female characters – I think it’s why I like Game of Thrones so much as well,” McQuirter said. But the language as well as the characters really grabbed him.

“Greek plays in general, but especially Antigone have really tight language. There’s a unity of time and action. The script is straight forward; clean and tight,” McQuirter said. The language is to the point, but the play is anything but simple. “You have to delve deep into the psychological things going on and decide what side you’re on,” McQuirter said.

Because the play hinges on the tension between the pivotal characters King Creon and Antigone, there was a lot of thought behind casting these roles. “It took awhile to cast,” McQuirter said, “you have an unmovable object and an unstoppable force.” The actors filling these roles needed similar qualities without overwhelming each other. Kevin Gates and Makeena Perkal seemed to have found just that balance.

Blake Robbins as Prince Haemon

“The cast is great – they’re excited about getting to do a classical work like this,” McQuirter said. He spoke about the power of “utterance” in a play like Antigone. Explaining the importance of breathing and projecting, McQuirter also talked about the process of rehearsing the play. “The actors are generating a piece of stone to be sculpted. You have to go big, get the language out there and then fine tune it and work on crafting. The classics really portray people at the extreme – you have to delve and really pull from your most extreme experience to get there,” McQuirter said. His standby rule in rehearsals? “You can never be too big with the classics.”

Coming soon – find out what it takes to light up the stage with Antigone’s light designer Megan Reilly.

 

Anne Wharton is a blogger and photographer for the ACC Arts & Humanities Division. She graduated from ACC with an Associate in Dance in 2014 and has performed with the ACC Drama Department.

Photography by Anne Wharton.