See it if You like Shakespeare.
Don't see it if You do not like drama.
See it if if you like more serious settings and acting
Don't see it if you are easily affected by yelling and screaming
See it if You enjoy a riveting, dramatic show.
Don't see it if You don't like crying.
See it if You are interested in the history of theater and timeless themes of duty, responsibility and love.
Don't see it if Your favorite show is Cats.
See it if the classics appeal to you
Don't see it if you need showstopping musical numbers
See it if If you enjoy thought provoking drama.
Don't see it if Don't see it if you wish to see something light hearted. it does take allot out of you.
See it if Ivo Van Hove's direction as always is superb and Juliette Binoche stunning. But pacing a bit long and hard to hear in balcony.
Don't see it if you prefer comedies and fast paced shows.
See it if Like highly stylized, dramatic interactions - if fitful & eruptive? The chorus is integrated into the story, playing characters when re-
Don't see it if quired. There's no sing-song Greek chorus here - perhaps, it's missed. This is modern, sleek staging w/ filmed projections and eerie music.
"Fans of the Belgian director won’t be disappointed by this modern-dress production, which turns the ruler Kreon into a 21st-century fascist...Van Hove’s productions aren’t always easy to watch, and this 'Antigone,' set in some desert landscape, is no exception. There’s a huge bright disc of a sun nearly blinding the audience at the beginning of the drama and again at the end...The production’s high point isn’t any of Kreon’s scenes with Antigone but with his son and Antigone’s fiance."
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"The headliner -- and riveting center -- of 'Antigone' is Juliette Binoche in a lucid, vibrant, terrifically reasonable modern translation by poet Anne Carson...Although the iconoclastic Belgian director's brilliance, and often his outrageousness, are well known throughout Europe and in downtown Manhattan, the stark, fast-moving updated 'Antigone' is the kickoff of the city's unofficial van Hove year...It is elegant and thoughtfully moving in its tragic horror."
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"There is gravity to the playing space which echoes the gravity of what is happening in it. And while Mr. van Hove’s 'Antigone' isn’t a masterpiece, it is an excellent show, a work of art, inspired, thoughtful, in which everything clicks, and which stays with you after the performance is over."
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"'Antigone' has been treated to an Anne Carson translation so alive that its run might be extended for another 2,500 years...While not without stumbles, van Hove paced the production so well it felt more like a gripping dirge than the variety of Greek revival that has challenged the genre's box office -- histrionics and boredom taking turns. The actors spoke softly and slowly, vessels of the material."
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"Mediocre in pretty much every way...The play suffers from an odd combination of tonal self-importance and intentional (but clunkily executed) modern banalization. Still, through a series of not-so-palatable choices and underwhelming performances, it oddly does seem to interrogate and humanize Antigone’s acts."
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"There’s scant cheer — not to mention engagement — to be found in the production of 'Antigone'...A stripped-back, abstract set in the minimalist style, but without the energy required to fire up the current staging’s savage debate between the personal and the political...Mr. van Hove’s attempt to be timeless actually speaks to no time at all. You emerge not dazed and enlightened but glad to get out."
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"'Antigone' becomes a plea for pluralism in Ivo Van Hove’s new staging...the Belgian director turns Sophocles’s tragedy into a rallying cry against the us-and-them, black-and-white mentality of contemporary global politics. Anne Carson’s new translation, often insistently feminist, advocates the act of listening as the starting point of tolerance. It might lack feeling, but this is an urgent 'Antigone,' less about cathartic release than a real-world response."
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"There’s no getting away from it, though: I’m afraid it’s pretty lacklustre stuff...there’s a hole at the heart of this 90-minute affair; that elusive ability to make us make care...At the end, we get a surprise blast of the Velvet Underground’s 'Heroin' and the evening acquires a sudden upsurge of energy; alas, this rebellious shot in the arm comes too late to save the day."
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