Jean Anouilh

"Anouilh is a poet, but not of words: he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing" - Peter Brook. Jean Anouilh, one of the foremost French playwrights of the twentieth century, replaced the mundane realist works of the previous era with his innovative dramas, which exploit fantasy, tragic passion, scenic poetry, and cosmic leaps in time and space....

Antigone was originally produced in Paris in 1942, when France was occupied and part of Hitler's Europe. The play depicts an authoritarian regime which mirrors the predicament of the French people of the time. Based on Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy, Antigone, which was first performed in Athens in the 5th century BC, its theme was nevertheless topical. In Antigone's faithfulness...