Word: antigona
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...Passion of Antigona Perez at the Loeb Mainstage is like that New York Times page. Written in 1966, it is set in Molina, a fictional Latin American country not unlike Nicaragua. The events it describes, which we want to believe are fantasy, are occuring. Antigona Perez, conscious of her namesake the Greek Antigone, has buried two brothers in defiance of the laws of the State. The dictator, Creon Molina, who claims to personify the "will of the people," is desperate to have Antigona confess. He realizes that if she does not relent, he is bound to execute...
...still the Generalissimo. The stairs are still the stairs. The prisoners are still the prisoners." Nuances in the text have probably been lost through translation from the original Spanish--but Eddy restores them. He simultaneously manages to assert his power and suggest his vulnerability. In his struggle with Antigona, his voice assumes the paternalism of an absolute leader, the cruelty of a tyrant and the impersonality of one that has been broadcast throughout the land...
...chorus of the Greek tragedy. (The journalists also wear sunglasses. It is a bitterly appropriate effect that these "reporters" should have their vision blocked by dark glasses.) With voices reminiscent of CBS Evening News, the journalists mouth the distortions and fabrications Creon has fed them. They are the ones, Antigona says, who make it inevitable that there be "two versions of the truth: mine and theirs. Mine is simple enough...
...course, Antigona and her truth are not simple. Shorn of finery and barefoot, Cornelia Ravenal as Antigona has a difficult role. She not only enacts a scene but also steps outside the action to comment upon it. Ravenal is at her best when she is being a "witness to her times." She colors her idealism with a matter-of-fact sarcasm that does not diminish her goodness. Ravenal is tough and human; her lines could be rhetorical harangues but she delivers them with unaffected directness. Confronting other characters, Ravenal is less effective. At times her passionate responses to her mother...
Susan Chira, as Antigona's mother, has the most difficulty. She gives a performance that undoubtedly is heartfelt but unconvincing even to herself. Director Vicente Castro could have helped by providing her with a chair so she could sit rather than gesture lamely in pantomime while Antigona speaks to the audience. A chair might have provided action in a long and static scene. Cynthia Wondowlowski also lacks color as Antigona's friend Irene. For a woman who once braved the state and who now betrays her friend, there is too little rancor, fire, or even ashes...