Blue Slipper opens season with The Burial at Thebes

The Blue Slipper Theatre kicks off its 62 nd season with The Burial at Thebes, an adaptation of
Sophocles’ Antigone by Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. The production runs from
Oct. 2 through 11, with Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 3
pm. The Blue Slipper Theatre is located at 113 E. Callender, in downtown Livingston.
The Burial at Thebes, first commissioned by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre as part of its centenary
celebrations in 2004, brings a powerful new imagining of Sophocles’ 5 th Century BCE
masterpiece that “takes Sophocles’ dense, concentrated poetry and decants it into a beautifully
transparent contemporary idiom” (The Irish Times). The story examines the clash of family duty
vs. civic duty, natural laws vs. manmade rules, and a young woman’s personal morality at odds
with a tyrannical ruler who believes that his own decrees supersede the law of the land.
Following the downfall of Oedipus told in Oedipus Rex and his exile and death portrayed in
Oedipus at Colonus, this third of Sophocles’ “Theban Plays” follows Oedipus’ daughters (and
half-sisters) Antigone and Ismene as they navigate right and wrong in regard to the burial of their
brother Polynices. The new king, their uncle Creon, has declared Polynices a traitor and refuses
proper burial. Antigone’s defiance of this edict drives the action and tragic consequences of the
play.
The one-act drama, directed by Marc Beaudin and generously sponsored by Sandra Lambert and
Pine Creek Lodge, features Victoria Ouellette as Antigone, Neil Murphy as Creon, Rae Brooks
as Ismene, Katie Mangett as Tiresias, Benjamin Morales as Haemon, and Kaz Hall and Milo
Stevens as Guards. The Chorus is comprised of Annika Coleman, Keirria Herold, and Fiona
Shinn, who also perform original music they have created for this production.
“Antigone has remained in our canon for nearly 2,500 years for a reason: it’s a very human story
of speaking truth to power that, for better or worse, will always be timely and essential to our
current situation,” notes Beaudin. “In Heaney’s hands, the work retains the vitality and power of
the original, while giving it a modern edge, revealed through the masterful poetry of one of
Ireland’s, and the world’s, greatest poets.
For tickets and information, visit blueslipper.org, or call (406) 222-7720.