Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1962 University Daily Kansan
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'Antigone,' a Review
By Tom Winston
"Antigone" opened last night in the Experimental Theatre. It is a strong play, expressing strong ideas and played by a strong cast.
The play's impact, solid rather than shattering, presents a conflict provocative and disturbing enough to stir even the most passive mind. To put it another way, it is downright unsettling.
Sara Maxwell, Columbus senior, plays Antigone, regal, haughty, towering. She is altogether thrilling in a performance of great stature and variety.
JOHN WELZ, Webster Groves, Mo., senior, is in every way a match for Miss Maxwell. Welz has proved his power in past KU productions, notably in last year's "Look Homeward, Angel," "Trial of Captain John Brown" and "Murder in the Cathedral."
"Antigone" follows very closely the lines of the ancient Sophocles play of the same name, the third of Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy ("Oedipus Rex," "Oedipus at Colonus" and "Antigone"). It is set in Thebes, but in modern language and dress. And this Anouilh (the author) play has the added dimension of having been written during the German occupation of France in 1944.
In this light, the opposite ideologies of Creon, Antigone's uncle and King of Thebes, and Antigone take on a double-hued meaning.
BRIEFLY, THE plot is this: When Oedipus died, he left his throne to his two sons Polinices and Etocles, who were to rule in alternate years. But Etocles refused to yield the throne to Polinices at the end of his year, and civil war arose. The fracas ended with the brothers killing each other, each dying on the other's sword. The kingdom fell to Creon, their uncle.
To make an example of the senseless struggle and to try to perpetuate order, Creon ordered Etocles buried in the full pomp of a state funeral, but Polinices' body was thrown out into the street to rot and to be fed upon by dogs and vultures. Creon issued an edict making it a capital crime to bury him. It was Antigone, Polinces' sister and Creon's own niece, who defied him.
Sophocles simply offers Creon no choice but to execute Antigone, though he would rather not. Antigone was bent upon burying her brother despite the penalty. To her it was simply a crime against the gods not to, and the law of man should yield.
Anouilh retains the same conflict, but the overtones of the dialogue penetrate deeper issues beyond the simple matter at hand. Creon wants to save Antigone and he tries to argue her away from her goal:
"LIFE IS A child playing round your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden. Life is, perhaps, nothing more than the happiness that you get out of it." Creon tells her that her brothers were corrupt and not fit to be mourned.
For a moment Antigone is shaken, then flares anew:
"You with your promise of a humdrum happiness — provided a person doesn't ask too much of life. If life must be a thing of fear, and lying and compromise; if life cannot be free and incorruptible — then Creon, I choose death!"
Antigone will have all of life or she will have none of it. Creon is trapped.
Steve Callahan, Lawrence graduate student, plays the Chorus, which every Greek play must have. Anouilh uses him as a sort of story teller. Though not always with poise, Callahan plays with competence the prophet of the inevitable and leading philosopher of the play.
THE PLAY is so well written that it is most difficult to make up one's mind where his allegiance lies. Both Creon and Antigone are following the only course they know how. Creon says he is under the law, not above it. Antigone claims he made the law and can break it, that his edict is a crime against God.
We feel for Antigone because there is something horrible, deeply revolting and totally repugnant to man not to bury his dead. It matters not whether he be friend or enemy; it matters only that he is dead.
Among the other actors, especially notable are Terry Kovac, Wichita sophomore, and Kay Carroll, El Dorado junior. They provide the comic relief from the more tense parts of the play.
KOVAC PLAYS a guard who is more interested in saving his own neck than in anything else. All the rest of the conflict is "no skin off my nose." He and his companions reflect Anouilh's rather low opinion of the military and warriors.
Miss Carroll plays an old nurse, Antigone's guardian. She is charming and delightful and reminds one of a typical mother.
The remainder of the cast held its own with competence — no small feat against the smoldering performances of Miss Maxwell and Welz.
"Antigone" is Miss Sue Dillman's first essay into directing. She is a graduate student from Independence, and she has done a most impressive job.
VanderWerf Visits on NSF Series
C. A. VanderWerf, professor and chairman of the chemistry department, is at Lafayette College, Easton, Fa., as a National Science Foundation (NSF) visiting lecturer. He will return Friday.
- To strengthen the chemistry programs of smaller colleges.
- The purposes of the NSF visiting lecture program are:
- To bring the faculty and students of such colleges into contact with nationally recognized chemists.
This spring Prof. VanderWerf will be a NSF visiting lecturer at Denison University, Granville, Ohio; Western Illinois State College, Macomb, Ill.; and Central Missouri State Teachers College, Warrensburg, Mo.
- To aid in directing students toward careers in chemistry.
Prof. VanderWerf has made many similar NSF visiting lecture trips in the past. Last year he went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.
French Reds Plan Massive Strike
PARIS — (UPI) — French Communists planned a nationwide general strike today to coinide with an elaborate funeral for eight persons killed in violent street riots last Thursday.
THE SAME security forces successfully blocked off the Place de La Republique last night when 20,000 persons defied a government ban and turned out to demonstrate. They filled silently through the side streets and no violence resulted.
The Communist-run General Labor Fedcration called for a four-hour service strike in Paris to cut gas and electrical supplies. paralyze work in factories and offices and prevent the publication of Paris newspapers.
The government, which has blamed the violence that killed the eight persons on Communist provocations, alerted 30,000 special and regular police to prevent a possible repetition.
The demonstration, like the one which turned into tragedy last Thursday, was called to protest
Discriminatory clauses and policies of fraternities and sororities will be discussed by the Civil Rights Council at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Pine Room, and action against Greek houses will be considered.
CRC to Discuss Discrimination
George Buford, vice president of the CRC, said JoAnne Holbert, Kansas City sophomore and president of the Panhellenic Council, will speak to the CRC about discriminatory clauses in sorority constitutions. "But," Buford said, "discriminatory policies practiced by KU fraternities will also be discussed."
Mary Jean Cowell, St. Louis junior and secretary of the CRC, said the council will pay close attention to constitutions which have removed discriminatory clauses in the literal sense but exercise prejudice through similar clauses which are not specific in their exclusion.
Buford, asked if the CRC would entertain a plan of action against Greek houses at KU, said, "We would most certainly entertain such action. Just what it would be I would have no idea until the meeting. But this is the reason we are here — to right the wrongs if there are any."
Law Review Picks Staff
Twelve KU law students have been nominated for membership on the Kansas Law Review, quarterly publication, and six others have been elected to the Law Review Board of Governors.
Students who have earned a 2.0 grade average or above for the first semester's work, or who have earned a 1.8 overall average for more than one semester's work are eligible for the Law Review.
The Law Review, which is in its tenth year of publication, serves as an honor roll for the School of Law, and it is composed of 32 men in addition to 10 officers of the Board of Governors.
The Board of Governors assigns each student on the Law Review an article to prepare for publication. The student receives one hour academic credit for his work.
against the underground Secret Army Organization (OAS) which is battling to keep Algeria French.
The Board of Governors edits and grades the articles.
Board members usually are elected for one year terms. Additional members sometimes are elected to accommodate a large number of writers or to replace senior board members who graduate between semesters.
MORE EXPLOSIONS rocked the city of Algeria, killing 12 persons and wounding nine. They brought the unofficial total of victims since the first of the year to 763 dead and 1,363 injured.
But six more bombs exploded throughout Paris during the day and others went off in Grenoble, Nantes and Versailles. The government blamed them on the outlawed OAS and said they wounded three persons here.
In Algiers, 8,000 European shopkeepers and office workers left their jobs during a morning rain yesterday to attend the funeral of an OAS captain killed by police. There was no violence.
New members of the Board of Governors are:
Arlyn D. Haxton. Marysaville third year student, editor-in-chief. John E. Hurley. Wichita third year student, associate editor. Aubrey G. Linville. Salina second year student, sections editor. Thomas D. Herlocker. Winfield second year student, note editor. Bruce D. Stanton. Marysaville second year student, note editor. Bruce H. Wingerd, Marion second year student, note editor.
The OAS was active, however Men said to be members of the organization pulled two holdups in Algiers and robbed five banks in Oran. They got away with $70,000 and police predicted the money would be used to finance further raids and attacks.
FRENCH-ALGERIAN peace talks were reported underway somewhere near the border between Switzerland and France.
Seven leaders of the Algerian rebel government were discovered by newsmen in the small town of Yverdon, 25 miles inside France. They disappeared in a hurry to prevent being trailed.
They had arrived in Switzerland Saturday to confer with a French delegation reported headed by an African Affairs Minister Louis Jouz
DESPITE THE secrecy, French sources said both sides were negotiating a cease-fire and an agreement on Algerian independents. They said the talks centered. French insistence that a new government must give full citizenship any of the 1.1 million Europe residents of Algeria who want it.
The bodies of last Thursday's ri victims were laid out in the cep draped Labor Exchange building Paris. They included three wom and a 15-year old boy.
Parisians were urged, to file pa the bier before the funeral and follow the procession from the buil ing to the cemetery.
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