The opening ceremony of the Cairo International Theater Festival was littered with the usual fan fair, sparkly gowns and flashing cameras. It commenced in the lush atmosphere of the Cairo Opera House’s Main Hall last Friday night with the same speeches, polite entrances and introductions of those heading it.
It departed most significantly, however, from its expected pomp with a highly intelligent opening performance, “The Story of Antigone, by Italy’s Mistral Company for Modern Dance.
Approaching classics for modern theater companies is always a risky endeavor. Reasons differ widely, and audiences expect that these troupes will create some new and interesting take on the material, or simply present it in ways that allow viewers to savor the original beauty of the surviving works. Last week, the Mistral Company for Modern Dance did just that.
With subtle reworking, the company comprised of two theater actors playing Antigone and Creon, and a flock of eight or so dancers. Each took the large stage with subtlety and presence. Completely without a set, the group filled the void of the black stage with arresting movement and strongly executed text.
Sophocles’ plot centers on Antigone, the daughter of the ill-fated Oedipus and Jocasta, who lives in the midst of a war. When her brother Polyneices is killed in battle, he is denied proper burial for being a traitor to the state. Antigone then gains the fury of her imminent father-in-law, Creon, who also happens to be the king of Thebes, by refusing the edict and burying her brother’s body.
The work functioned on two levels simultaneously; the first through a contemporary dance repertoire, the second through actor monologue and duet. The actress Antigone found her double in a dancer Antigone, a lithe and passionate moving version of herself. In age, the actress playing Antigone seemed more appropriate for Jocasta, yet she made clear in every moment adages of age and wisdom, delivering her insightful lines with the virtuosity of a seasoned professional.
The play’s action is beautifully illustrated in moments like this: at the knowledge of her brother’s death and denial, dancer Antigone covers the body of a lifeless dancer (Polyneices) lying on the floor with her own. In a tender embrace, she moves the still figure on the black floor. A subtle instrumental piece plays. When Antigone is finally banished in the end of the play, the dancer Antigone and her ill fated fiancé (who kills himself out of love for Antigone) dance a duet of slow passionate lifts that twice inspired the audience to burst into spontaneous applause.
The staging of the work was simply inventive. A subtle mix of avant garde and contemporary movement is found in everything including the chorus, an (occasionally) masked group of five women with eerily similar bodies. Together they recreate the ritualistic hue of times that believed in fleets of unseen gods. All are swathed in the grey tones one might expect in a play of this gravity. They move in unison and successive motion with strong grace that only occasionally lapses into slightly chaotic expressivity. The later is perfectly tolerable as it is short in duration, and more often than not proves its metaphorical point.
All in all, the collaboration between text and movement is harmonious, the chorus doing their proverbial time as supporters and strengtheners of the plot.
Though I do not speak Italian, the text was (clumsily) projected in English on the textured walls. The story of Antigone, enduringly pertinent, rang thoughtfully in the grand hall.
The older actor playing Creon was perhaps the only slightly “off aspect of The Mistral Company’s production. Through generous over-acting, he often rendered his crisp lines in ways that threatened to deflate them. Granted, the character of Creon is a politician whose sincerity we are asked to question.
For whatever reasons, Creon was without a dancer double. The choice for Haemon to appear as a dancer without an actor double might be chalked up to budgetary concerns, but for the purposes of the play’s artful execution, the dancer skillfully satisfied all possible aspects of his character. Appearing in a black turtleneck and briefs displaying his prominent leg muscles, dancer Haemon worked through his delicate and complex choreography with the dizzying focus of a true craftsman. For her part, the dancer Antigone, imparted her chaotic vocabulary with the moving and intelligent confusion of one sentenced to death.
She alone moved the audience to several of their many off curtain rounds of clapping. She was lean, aggressive and passionate. Even in the early moments of the performance, she managed to convey the tender integrity of the woman who condemns herself to death over acquiescence to injustice.
“Fate? , the actress Antigone spits, “Do not forget the man who does this to me. Is it fate that gives his hand a shove? After me, there will be others in this unjust war.
“If anyone asks you about Antigone, tell them she escaped- to death.
It was a promising start to the 10-day festival.
