Earlier in 2020 the 12 ATAR Drama class performed a version of Antigone as part of their required assessment. Over the course of 2020 Director, Jane Hille, reworked the script and offered this class and some of our Alumni the opportunity to perform Antigone at the 2021 Perth Fringe Festival.
“I have always wanted to do an adaptation of this Greek Trilogy. I wanted to give a voice to character’s previously silenced. In honouring the original text, this adaptation reveals part of the story I have wondered about for years, in truth I have felt great sympathy for Oedipus. He was the victim that bore the suffering for someone else, as does his daughter Antigone.
This year I was privileged enough to teach a particularly talented and committed group of Year 12 ATAR Drama students and I offered them the experience of going to Fringefest 2021, where they are now Alumni as an experience that might help put right some of the difficulties, they have had this year, finishing school through a worldwide pandemic.
This is not a pleasant story. It is after all a tragedy, however, in this adaptation I have tried to contextualise the meaning of a young woman of faith who is disempowered by the system of her own country. That message is universal sadly, one that we cannot be reminded of enough. It is also a story about redemption and regret. When hubris (pride) often forces us to hold on to long to ideas to our own detriment.\
Antigone is a gritty, confronting, passionate production, performed by some remarkable young people, who it has been my privilege to know and work with.”
– Ms Jane Hille, Director of Fenceline Theatre Company