Word: creon
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...French of Jean Anouilh by Lewis Galantiere; produced by Katharine Cornell in association with Gilbert Miller) was born of the Nazi occupation of Paris. Playwright Anouilh (pronounced Ahn-oo-ee) reworked the famed Antigone of Sophocles with a furtive and topical eye: Antigone's defiance of King Creon's edict that her brother Polynices' body must lie unburied might be a spur to French resistance. In writing the play, Anouilh was plainly walking on eggs. Not only must his Antigone hearten the French, but his Creon must not offend the Germans...
...written by Sophocles, the play tells the story of Oedipus' daughter Antigone, whose two brothers kill each other in a quarrel over who shall succeed their dead father. When Creon, Antigone's uncle, takes the throne, he issues his edict that one of the brothers must lie unburied, as a lesson that the law must be enforced. Protesting this indignity, Antigone twice attempts to bury the body. Her efforts fail, she is caught and condemned to death, finally commits suicide...
...uncle Creon is her antagonist--Creon, as the Chorus says, the Chorus the ruler who loves to rule. At first she hates him because he has forbidden her brother's burial, but after one tremendous scene in which she withstands his every nuance of guile she realizes that his evil goes far beyond the personal level, and she dies for a greater cause than her first...
...Creon as portrayed in this play is the archtype of the fascist leader--the man who says he took the wheel of the shop "only because it was sinking and somebody had to help." It is not difficult to see why the play was allowed to be performed in occupied France: the appeal of Creon is probably the stronger of the two to most audiences, conditioned as we are to politics over principle...
...mind. She plays it with a skill that makes the part really Antigone, not Cornell, sacrificing most of the audience appeal she could have produced with a few slips from the rigid interpretation. Codrie Hardwicke, on the other hand, has a part to be envied in Creon, although this is not to say that he fails in any way to do it justice. Horace Braham as the Chorus is worthy of mention for his fine delivery of a touchy role, as is George Mathews for his portrayal of the First Guard, the part that contains most of the injected parody...