Review: ANTIGONX at Wilbury Theatre Group

From the moment the four-member cast sings its way into the theater and consecrates the four corners of the stage in a a Taino ritual called the Caney Circle, it is clear that this is a play aware of its ancestry. But playwright Shey Rivera Ríos has vividly refreshed this work as a story for our time and AntigonX, at the Wilbury Theatre, is vibrant and visually stunning.

Sophocles' original Antigone is a most durable play, still performed and discussed 2,500 years after its debut in Athens. It has been adapted by Brecht, Cocteau, and Anouilh and set everywhere from South Africa to Ferguson, Missouri. In their inspired and pointed rewriting of the work, Rivera Ríos, like famed Puerto Rican playwright Luis Rafael Sánchez in his 1960s version, places the action in a "fictional" Latin-American nation.

This retelling's King Creon, Governor Creón Rosal Colon, rules the island of "Abundancia." The action follows the four children of Oedipus: Creon-supporter Casimar Joel and rebel Abey Amal, who have killed each other in the prologue, and the non-binary Antigona (Shey Rivera Ríos) and their sister Ismene (Violeta Cruz Del Valle). The seer Tiresias (Marcel A. Mascaro) is proprietor of a liminal state, a data-powered shaman who oversees the proceedings. Assistant choreographer Shaffany Terrell rounds out the cast and provides several inspired dance interludes.

The plot will no doubt be familiar: the dictator decrees that the "good" Casimar Joel should receive a hero's funeral, but the revolutionary Abey Amal be left unburied on penalty of death. Antigona is determined to bury their brother, no matter the cost, a decision that Ismene tries to argue them out of unsuccessfully. Rivera Ríos and Cruz Del Valle make sparks fly in their confrontation, and offer a touching moment when the shade of Antigona returns to comfort their sister. Cruz Del Valle's turn at the end of the play--without spoilers--is both cleverly crafted and satisfying. Updating Tiresias as a trans-dimensional tinkerer is inspired, and Mascaro hits just the right notes. "Venus in retrograde," they mutter, as they work to fix the enormous projection screen that dominates the stage.

Director Jackie Davis has a clear vision for the work, and the action is crisp and well staged throughout the 60-minute runtime. The set and prop design by Jackie Davis and Shey Rivera with Max Ponticelli as technical director and Saul Rámos Espola as stage and props assistants is gorgeous and technically amazing. As are the beautifully designed and meticulously executed costumes by Maria Del Carmen Mercado. The main screen upstage is flanked by three smaller stretched pentagonal ancillary screens, trees and grasses, TV sets, a skull, two filing cabinets, and a circle of small stones anchored by a tree stump that constitute the main stage. Looming behind it all is a fifteen-foot diameter illuminated moon.

The screens are not just used for static projections; rather, they advance and comment on the action, including a deliciously mordant ad for "Discover Abundancia," featuring puffery about the crypto economy, yachts, and jet skis.

In this version of the story, the death of Antigona leads to class consciousness and a reclaimed Borikén. Tiresias, playing one of the mob we hear vowing to avenge her death, leads the audience in chanting: "Somos mas, y no tenemos miedo" (We are more, and we are not afraid). It's a powerful, immersive moment of theater.

"As we pursue healing, we interrupt generational curses," Tiresias says, a much more hopeful thought than Sophocles ever entertained. If you enjoy sharply political work, with callbacks in both writing and performance to the classics, you will find much to like in this evening of richly imagined theater.

AntigonX, by Shey Rivera Ríos, directed by Jackie Davis. Wilbury Theatre Group, 475 Valley Street, Providence, RI, April 3, 6-10, 7:30 pm. Tickets $35 at https://www.thewilburygroup.org/antigonx.html. Mask and proof of vaccination required. (Tickets for all performances are "pay what you can.")

From April 20-24, AntigonX will be featured at the Double Edge Theatre/Magdalena International Festival 948 Conway Road, Ashfield, MA. April 21, 6pm April 23, 1 pm, Tickets: $50-100 available at 413.628.0277 or at https://doubleedgetheatre.org/performances/rites/

Photo Credits: Erin X. Smithers

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