Set Design for Antigone and how it Helps the Audience Understand the Th

Outline your set design for Antigone and say how it would help a present day audience to understand the play's themes and atmosphere. For the set design of Antigone, I need to think about how everything links together to provide a complete picture, interacting the actors with set, colour & scale. If I was designing the set for a performance this play at college, I would have it performed in the theatre studio in Notre Dame college, it is a linear square space approximately 8metres x 8metres. The key themes being communicated in this play are those of power, arrogance, love, war, pride & family values. As we know, the pretext of the play is the aftermath of a war, so I feel that a backdrop of the aftermath of World War I would be appropriate as the context will be the feuding East European countries feuding. The backdrop will be that of the trenches after World War I and this will be constantly there to underline the message that it is a post war society. When this point needs emphasising, it will be lit; such at time could be the opening chorus on lines 100-148. This will provide the military-like atmosphere along with the chorus dressed in military uniforms, again to emphasise the point, it would be a very cheerful yet controlled atmosphere that I would want to create. I would use purple in this production to show importance, I would also have Creon dressed in a formal military 5-star General's uniform made from purple fabric, purple is also a colour of royalty, as we know, in the play Creon is king, in the performance, he is a General in context but still a king, the uniform will tell the audience of his superiority above his associates, but the purple should give them the idea that he is of a royal background. There will be two purple drapes hanging from each side upstage, these are there to symbolise the authority of Creon as they are 6-7 feet in width and are draped from the ceiling to the ground. These would be quite enclosing imposing and so are a constant reminder that Creon is ruler and makes anyone stood next to it look fairly insignificant which is its purpose. At the beginning, when Antigone is arguing with Ismene whether to bury Polynecies, Antigone will be stood upstage centre in full view expressing herself, whereas Ismene will be stood upstage left next to one of the drapes, this will signify Creon's... ...t his power and ego is not infallible, only his arrogance is. The costume is of a military nature as I have already described, but for Haemon and Antigone, it will be much more youthful to start, but as the performance goes on, their costume will change as their attitudes change; thus, after Antigone has buried her brother, she will be much more sombre, wearing black (line 441) to symbolise the respect for her brother. Similarly for Haemon when he talks to his father after Antigone has been condemned, he would be wearing all black to symbolise sadness but with a red sash across his waist to show anger towards his father (line 633). Also when the chorus climb the blocks for the final verse, they will now have luxurious velvet purple uniforms, again to show a change in power, Creon is now dirty from rolling on the ground, they stand above him. For this set design. I used the Craig idea of Unified Stage Picture, taking into account all aspects of the set, the Overall Design Concept; everything has a use and is interwoven with the context of the text, the interaction with the set by actors, the moving of the rubble. This all adds together to provide Total Theatre.