A vision of ‘Antigone’ shaped by Sept. 11

The ancient Greeks were not Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Yet in the first few minutes of South Coast Repertory’s provocative “Antigone” -- the company’s first production of a Greek tragedy -- emblems of those religions are all over the stage.

A high bank of votive candles, as in a Catholic church, flickers from the rear of Walt Spangler’s set. After a spoken prelude, parts of the Greek chorus become a Protestant choir, singing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Others begin chanting prayers in Hebrew and Arabic.

The sounds and the sights are chaotic. No one appears to hear anyone else. The blind seer Tiresias is led across the stage by a young boy, but no one notices, except the audience.

Suddenly -- disaster. The wall of candles collapses in an explosion. Rubble rains down. The gaping hole in the horizon, where the candles once were, is in the unmistakable shape of one of the World Trade Center’s towers.

This imagery is confirmed when a man, whom we later learn is King Creon’s son Haemon, leaves a phone message for his fiancee, Antigone, describing what he just saw. “Someone screamed, ‘Run north as fast as you can.’ The debris cloud enveloped me,” Haemon says.

Yes, Kate Whoriskey’s staging of Sophocles’ “Antigone” is informed by Sept. 11.

Fortunately, the topical references don’t get much more specific. Whoriskey plants the thought in our brains, yanking the text into the 21st century, immediately imparting a sense of urgency. Then she delivers an “Antigone” that, despite contemporary costumes and furnishings, isn’t all that different from a traditional staging.

Her strategy pays off.

In the original, the brothers Polyneices and Eteocles have waged war over the kingdom of Thebes, killing each other in the process. After their uncle, Creon, assumes the throne, he treats Eteocles’ body with due respect. But because Creon blames Polyneices for the devastation, he refuses to bury him.

Whoriskey stops short of equating Polyneices with Osama bin Laden. But she makes the point, amply justified by Sophocles’ text, that a ruler who survives such a crisis cannot afford to self-righteously close his mind to the perspectives of others.

The primary “other” in Creon’s case is his niece Antigone, who insists on personally burying her brother Polyneices, citing the gods’ laws in defiance of her uncle’s fiat.

Despite the earlier allusions to monotheistic religions, Brendan Kennelly’s brisk, stark translation refers to the Greek gods in the plural. But this intellectual discrepancy doesn’t matter much in the theater.

Alyssa Bresnahan’s Antigone -- with a short, blond, contemporary haircut and military-style clothes -- is so certain of her choice that she’s as self-righteous as Creon at times. But Whoriskey visualizes Antigone’s anguish by letting her struggle in vain against the ropes that harness her as she is led to the cave where she will be buried alive.

Randle Mell’s Creon capably enacts the king’s transformation from pomp to pathos, from control freak to contrite father. His confrontation with Eric D. Steinberg’s Haemon is charged with cross-generational tension, sharply etched by Scott Zielinski’s lighting. An earlier scene, in which Creon learns that someone is defying him, provides the play’s only smidgen of comic relief, thanks in part to Henri Lubatti’s performance as the hapless bearer of bad tidings.

Whoriskey hasn’t altered the awkward dramaturgy of the second act, with its reliance on a messenger and its thankless scene for Creon’s wife, Eurydice. But a long, black train for Eurydice’s costume enhances the sense of doom. And a final image of the dead lovers, in the same space where the candles once burned, is stunning.

Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen provide an intriguing soundscape. The chorus often sings and performs simple dance movements. But these numbers generally strengthen Whoriskey’s overriding vision of an “Antigone” that matters as much now as it did 2,500 years ago.

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‘Antigone’

Where: South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Ends: Feb. 29

Price: $27-$55

Contact: (714) 708-5555

Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Alyssa Bresnahan...Antigone

Randle Mell...Creon

Nambi E. Kelley...Ismene

Allan Louis...Chorus Leader

Henri Lubatti...Guard

Eric D. Steinberg...Haemon

Hal Landon Jr....Tiresias

Jacques C. Smith...Messenger

Deborah Van Valkenburgh...Eurydice

By Sophocles. Directed by Kate Whoriskey. Translated by Brendan Kennelly. Music and sound by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, with additional lyrics from the public domain, W.B. Yeats and W. Szymborska. Set and costumes by Walt Spangler. Lighting by Scott Zielinski. Stage manager Randall K. Lum