African Antigones: “Wherever the call for freedom is heard!”

Abstract

If Creon could not hear Antigone, giving no credibility to her words, unable to see logic to which she appeals, she continues to speak through history of political translations and performances of Antigone, which, even as they re-signify her, articulate and renew law she introduces.- Tina ChanterRejoice with usRejoice heartily with usThe tyrantWho gives wicked ordersWe have conquered him!Oh yes, we have beaten him!We have seen his back!- Femi Osofisan, TegonniIn this chapter,I consider two plays that draw on Sophocles' Antigone (442 BC): The Island (first performed in 1973, published in 1993) by South African playwright Athol Fugard and Tegonni: an African Antigone (first performed in 1994, published in 1999) by Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan.11 examine relevance and implications of appro1 priation of Antigone in contexts of South Africa and Nigeria, considering Antigone's representative value in her new surroundings and (meta)theatrical aesthetics that characterize her cultural translocation. Finally, I turn to effects of Antigone's translocation on her status as a Western canonical figure. Throughout my discussion, I am particularly interested in how Fugard's and Osofisan's ?African Antigones' relate to Antigone's political legacy. Let me therefore start with a brief exploration of Antigone's politics.Antigone's politicsOf all heroes and heroines of Greek tragedy, Antigone is probably most famous and certainly most debated one. Her popularity has been discussed at length - for example, by George Steiner, who, in preface to his book Antigones (1984), classifies play as one of most enduring and canonic acts in history of our philosophic, literary, political consciousness:Whenever, wherever, in western legacy, we have found ourselves engaged in confrontation of justice and of law, of aura of dead and claims of living, whenever, wherever hungry dreams of young have collided with realism of ageing, we have found ourselves turning to words, images, sinews or argument, synecdoches, tropes, metaphors, out of grammar of Antigone and of Creon.2Steiner concludes his study by foretelling Antigone's eternal life: All I can be certain of is this: what I have tried to say is already in need of addition. New ?Antigones' are being imagined, lived now; and will be tomorrow.3This prophesy about Antigone seems to be in tension with Steiner's earlier claim in The Death of Tragedy (1961) that genre has died with rise of modernity. There, he argues that dominant mythologies of twentieth century, liberalism and especially Marxism, are fundamentally anti-tragic, as they do not admit of tragic despair, a mortal sin against Marxism no less than against Christ.4 For Steiner, tragedy is about powerlessness and fall of individual, reflecting a fatalist world-view. Adhering to a purity of genre, he presents tragedy as unfit for modem adaptations, or, rather, modem adaptations as unfit for tragedy (by which he means Greek tragedy), whose significance they tend to destroy: the ancient is not a glove into which modem can slip at will. Interestingly, Steiner presents Antigone as exception to his rule, an achievement apart, a claim he substantiates by referring to Jean Anouilh's Antigone, which premiered in Paris in 1944: while elsewhere, variations on classic themes have yielded eccentric and often ignoble results, in political context of occupied France, Steiner argues, Anouilh succeeded in preserving meaning of Sophocles' tragedy.5As I proposed in previous chapter, suppositions such as Steiner's do not take into account fact that meaning is always contingent and in movement. Here, I am fascinated by how Antigone forces Steiner into a position in which he cannot but contradict himself, foretelling Antigone's eternal life in a modem world in which tragedy cannot survive. …