SoHo Shakespeare Company presents
ANTIGONE—a reframing of Jean Anouilh’s classic tragedy.
By Jean Anouilh, translated by Lewis Galantière, inspired by the original Greek play by Sophocles

SoHo Shakespeare Company’s Antigone
The year is 2030. An uprising that resulted in civil war has been put down. Elections in The United States are now run by the Federal Government, and the Neo-Fascist 47 Regime has entered its Third Term. Creon presides over the Northeast Quarter of the US, under the watchful eye of the country’s 47th Presidential Supreme Leader. What will Creon do to maintain a fragile peace? What will Antigone do to break the illusion?

Anouilh’s Antigone was first produced under the Nazi occupation of France in February, 1942. It passed the Nazi censors, and was approved for production by the Third Reich. Perhaps the classical title was a distraction. In Anouilh’s adaptation we witness the cautionary tale of a party of survivors at war with itself, symbolizing a resistance to fascism and a mirror to our own fractured present. This is the tragedy of a “new order” fractured by a generational divide: between a veteran guard that “said yes” to the burden of leadership, and an iconoclastic generation that “says no” to the sacrifices that follow.

The ultimate tragedy is that the death of the idealist results in the apathy of the masses, and the wheel spins round and round. By choosing a convenient peace, we trade awareness for a false sense of security, accepting the promise of safety in exchange for silence, and thus elevate a society that is easiest to control. By silencing the radical voice, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the very authoritarians who seek to enslave us. Enter Fascism 2026.

Tickets available at sohoshakes.org