A retrospective on Antigone Retold by Lauren Noble
I was just 16 years old when I first read Antigone. It was one of the many challenging texts that I would study over the course of five years in my favourite class at Pinetown Girls High School: dramatic arts with Mrs Logan. I was quite astounded by the content even then. A teenage girl named Antigone defies the law of Creon, her own uncle and the new king of Thebes, in favour of performing a ritual upon her deceased brother in accordance with the law of her gods. I was immediately invested in the wider narrative and read absolutely everything I could about Oedipus, the cults associated with The Oracle of Delphi, and even started unpacking the notion of literary tragedies which occur when a prophecy is unwittingly fulfilled by the same individual who is so desperately trying to escape their fate. It fascinated me that their actions would always set their aforementioned fate into highspeed motion.
The opening scene of Antigone by Sophocles sees two young sisters reeling from the traumatic demise of almost all of their immediate family. They only have each other left - the "last cursed branches of this family tree". These two sisters react so differently to King Creon’s decree preventing the burial of one of their brothers. Antigone is full of rage, already resolved to defy her king, and she challenges Ismene to prove her worth by joining her in that act.

I remember 16 year old Lauren admiring Antigone for her courage and lauding her as the obvious heroine of this story. She was the titular character after all! I also remember 16 year old Lauren denouncing and fiercely judging Ismene for her lacklustre response to a throwing down of a gauntlet if ever she saw one. The line below is uttered by Ismene and has become one of my favourites, laden with multiple meanings when you look closely enough at the signs and symbols.
“We must submit in this, and things still worse. I’ll beg the gods to forgive me. But my hands are tied, I have no choice - I must obey.”
It was obvious to me back in my high school days that Ismene was the weak one, the submissive one, the one who disappears halfway through the text and no one really seems to notice. Antigone’s defiance in the face of the patriarchy was true courage... or so I thought. With time and distance I have come to realise that my own feminism was taking shape as I contemplated the differences between Antigone and Ismene. I am now 36 years old and Ismene has become the character I am actually most intrigued by because of how she represents the women who come to inherit their feminism later in life. My own experience as a woman navigating a patriarchal world has provided me with enough insight to re-evaluate that which I believed to be the only truth about what feminism could (or perhaps should) look like. The truth about women like Ismene. The truth about women like Janet Jackson, and Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Antigone and Ismene are not contrasts of one another, as I had once believed. They are simply a manifestation of the types of feminism that some are born with, and that some come to know a little later in life. Both are valid, because both exist.

Fast forward two decades, to the moment I walked into The Acropolis Museum in Athens, and was met by an exhibit of the Caryatids on first floor. Being married to an architect, I was aware of their form and function. Being a student of Classics at university, I was aware of the artistry involved in sculpting such intricately braided hair and the folds of their dresses. What I was unaware of, however, was just how significant the absence of one of the sisters would become to me as a writer. The obvious emptiness of the plinth sparked my imagination. I immediately wondered what she must have thinking about over at The British Museum in London, unable as she was to converse with her sisters about the happenings of the day. She was effectively removed from her own story, rendered silent within a statued form. A sister sans a sisterhood.
I began devising around the Greek mythologies I had always loved and suddenly I met a group of women who were an amalgamation of my mind, their myths and the input of some of my performers into their own character’s narratives. An integral aspect of my pedagogy as a theatre teacher has always been to revere ancient forms of the arts without being afraid to challenge them or shake them up. Very early on in this devising process I knew that the beautiful choral odes of the ancient Greek chorus were a pressure point for a tale that was so innately feminist.
Their performers, like Sophocles the playwright, were men... and I wanted to hear from the women! The Seven Devils became a vehicle to deconstruct the tale of Antigone by reconstructing their own narratives from out of the story that was unfolding below them.
My editing of the Sophoclean text also made me realise that, despite Antigone’s role as the title character, it was actually the onward journey of Ismene that existed at the core of my new iteration. After all, she is the only one left at the end...
Antigone Retold is my way of bringing the beauty of classical theatre and our 21st century culture together in a way that feels organic to me. Apart from being my love letter to Durban and the creative industries and individuals who raised me to be the woman I am today, Antigone Retold is the type of theatre I want to watch. Thought-provoking without taking itself too seriously. A blend of styles without singling out any ahead of the others. A romp through the imaginarium of my mind without losing sight of the poignant messages within the text as a whole. It is without a shadow of a doubt the most difficult, complex, multi-faceted piece of writing I have ever written! This is due, in part, to the fact that not every type of feminism presented on our stage is my type of feminism, at the end of the day. But then, Ismene has taught me not to judge so swiftly and to rather spend time considering these complexities and contradictions.
And, of course, much like Calliope, I acknowledge that I am only really a conduit for stories that are much bigger than myself. Calliope’s character aligns entirely with my core belief in my own responsibility as a storyteller - to provide a platform for others to tell those stories that do not, and sometimes can not, belong to me.
“Hear now the words of the women, the stories we hold but don’t own
Whether monster or maiden, whether goddess or girl, whether duchess or damsel or crone
The oldest of powers invoked here, Lord Dionysus we now turn the page
Hear now the words of the women, our stories retold on your stage.”
The Woza Habibi Tour from Dubai to Durban evolved in much the same way as the original production did, aiming to ignite in Durban the same collaborative, creative, communal synergies we experienced in artistry and education in Dubai in 2022.
The Durban iteration of Antigone Retold provided us with an opportunity to embrace every objective within the triple-pronged framework that is Collab Company. It was another space to research the impact of our synergistic model, where implementation strategies happening within one platform are integrated into the creative processes of another, elevating everything and everyone equally throughout every facet of the process and performance. The value of curating creative environments where skills and knowledge are shared safely in a cross-continental collaboration cannot be overstated. I am so proud of the work our Durban and Dubai cast, crew, choir and collaborative partners put into this piece and I am even more excited for you to journey with them as they step into the spotlight to tell you about their experiences themselves. Indeed, this retrospective cannot stop with my article alone because the final South African iteration of Antigone Retold is a sum of its many, many parts.
There is a hunger for experimental work like this in my beautiful hometown and I hope the process and performance of Antigone Retold sparks many flames that are fanned into many blazing infernos of ideas for more, and more, and more to emerge out of the Durban theatrical community. Further still, I hope that those of your reading this from anywhere in the world are able to find meaning for yourselves within this retrospective series. "Woza Habibi..." because it's not just a catchphrase.
© Lauren Noble for Collab Company | 2025
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