Describe how you would want your audience to respond during the final scenes of Antigone
Describe how you would want the audience to respond in the final scene (beginning from Eurydice’s entrance)
The final scene of Antigone is where the tragedy of the situation is revealed; Creon, in simply doing what he thinks his right, has angered the Gods to the point where Antigone has died, Haemon has killed himself in fury with him, and Eurydice has also committed suicide upon hearing this news. The audience should feel sorrow; they should feel pity for Eurydice, as she hears the news. And they should also feel sympathy for Creon; though he has been a somewhat antagonist throughout the play, he has always maintained that he was doing the right thing; and yet, just as he begins to see the error of his ways, it all goes so very wrong for him.
The entrance of Eurydice should come as somewhat of a shock to the audience; given the situation, and the news that the Messenger is here to deliver, the audience should feel as though she shouldn’t be here. She should enter from the stage left as the Messenger is stood in the centre, and upon noticing her, the Messenger should bow (Eurydice is the King’s wife, after all) and move towards stage right. Eurydice should walk slowly, taking baby steps, as though cautious. She has just fainted, and she has overheard parts of the previous conversation, so she has more than enough reason to be weary. When Eurydice speaks, she should speak as though she is about to cry, but covers it up with nervous laughter; she should sniff and stutter, and speak as though she has a lump in her throat. Although, she should keep her composure, and not at any point really brake down. As she herself says, she has ‘had experience with evil’, and so she’d know how to keep herself together, but the horror of what has befallen her is a tipping point; experience of suffering is one thing, but for a mother to lose her son in this way is beyond imaginable. Her first two words, ‘my friends’ should sound unsure, almost weak. She should stutter on ‘my’, and
The final scene of Antigone is where the tragedy of the situation is revealed; Creon, in simply doing what he thinks his right, has angered the Gods to the point where Antigone has died, Haemon has killed himself in fury with him, and Eurydice has also committed suicide upon hearing this news. The audience should feel sorrow; they should feel pity for Eurydice, as she hears the news. And they should also feel sympathy for Creon; though he has been a somewhat antagonist throughout the play, he has always maintained that he was doing the right thing; and yet, just as he begins to see the error of his ways, it all goes so very wrong for him.
The entrance of Eurydice should come as somewhat of a shock to the audience; given the situation, and the news that the Messenger is here to deliver, the audience should feel as though she shouldn’t be here. She should enter from the stage left as the Messenger is stood in the centre, and upon noticing her, the Messenger should bow (Eurydice is the King’s wife, after all) and move towards stage right. Eurydice should walk slowly, taking baby steps, as though cautious. She has just fainted, and she has overheard parts of the previous conversation, so she has more than enough reason to be weary. When Eurydice speaks, she should speak as though she is about to cry, but covers it up with nervous laughter; she should sniff and stutter, and speak as though she has a lump in her throat. Although, she should keep her composure, and not at any point really brake down. As she herself says, she has ‘had experience with evil’, and so she’d know how to keep herself together, but the horror of what has befallen her is a tipping point; experience of suffering is one thing, but for a mother to lose her son in this way is beyond imaginable. Her first two words, ‘my friends’ should sound unsure, almost weak. She should stutter on ‘my’, and