Antigone

            Antigone (Paul Grabovac – a touching performance), the daughter resulting from Oedipus’s incest with his mother, was forbidden to bury her brother by cruel King Creon (Alexa Taylor, well acted, but take care of your throat and voice), as he considered the brother a traitor.
Antigone ignored the order and was condemned to die, locked up in a cave. The characters in the play were supervised and controlled from on high by Zeus (Sam Minett), who acted as a puppeteer. On the death of Antigone (some very clever lighting effects) Zeus ascended into heaven. He returned to earth as the blind prophet Teiresias.
Eventually King Creon got a conscience, returned to free Antigone, only to find her dead. On hearing of Antigone’s death, her fiancé, Haemon (Aimee *!) in retaliation decided to kill his father, the king. The killing was botched, so Haemon committed suicide instead. This broke his mother’s heart, so she too killed herself, leaving King Creon riddled with guilt at the turmoil he had caused.

Greek tragedies are normally the shows that people go to, either to impress their friends with their broad scope of theatre-going, or because they feel suicidal themselves. If Joe Lui is connected to a show, then you know it is going to be different. This PhD student, who is the director, certainly knows how to give the audience a full experience and something diverse.
In ‘Antigone’ Lui has all the actresses playing male characters and vice-versa. This stretched the actors’ abilities and was generally very successful. His lighting was innovative, and at times synchronised to the movements of the characters with split second accuracy. Very good lighting operation by Matthew Marino.
Ciane Rogers’s costumes, especially that of Teiresias, were imaginative and unique.
As clearly explained as any Greek tragedy that I have seen. The visual effects and general choreography of the muses / chorus held the audience’s attention and interest.