Antigone

Jean Anouilh is one of the foremost French writers of the 20th century Now regarded as a classic text Antigone is a set text for WJEC GCE Drama and Theatre Studies Contains expert notes on the author's life and work, historical and political background to the play, a glossary of difficult words and phrases and questions for study

"Antigone" was originally produced in Paris in 1942, when France was an occupied nation and part of Hitler's Europe. The play depicts an authoritarian regime and the play's central character, the young Antigone, mirrored the predicament of the French people in the grips of tyranny. One of the masterpieces of the modern French stage.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. For in Antigone's faithfulness to her dead brother and his proper burial and her reiterated "No!" to the dictator Creon, the French audience saw its own resistance to the German occupation. The Germans allowed the play to be performed presumably because they found Creon's arguments for dictatorship so convincing. The play is regularly performed and studied around the world. "Anouilh is a poet, but not a poet of words: he is a poet of words-acted, of scenes-set, of players-performing" Peter Brook