Episode 4 - Masks

Before this episode, we have just performed the Eros dance chorus, and in the line 'When Eros plays, we burn.' we all run off into the trenches as Holly, Antigone, enters the stage. We use this time to put our masks on, as we need to respect the rules of mask work by not showing the audience us putting the masks on as much as possible, as this ruins the illusion. We then all face the stage, with the masks on the back of our heads slowly moving and reaching up and down. Having the masks on backwards make sit look as if we are looking directly at the audience. I suggested this idea because I felt we had not enhanced the creepy feel to the play enough yet, considering this is a post apocalyptic concept. This also reflects what Antigone is saying, as she tells the story of 'the goddess Niobe' and how she died.

At the end of the verse that the chorus delivers, we drop down to our knees reaching up, towards the sky. This line- 'you go to death by choice' is repeated throughout the scene at the end of small speeches, therefore focusing on this line gives it more meaning. The reaching implies to the audience that we are dragging her down, either to the cave she later ends her life in or to hell, as below the stage was thought of as a hellish state in the original Greek theatres. 

Later on in the scene we form a cave like shape around Antigone facing away, to show that we are listening, and trapping her. Facing away creates an odd and intimidating visual for the audience. 

At another point in this scene we are spread out across the whole stage, and as Antigone delivers her monologue we all turn away, still with our masks on, but the right way now. This suggests that we don't need to know Antigone without wanting to know her and listen to her problems. It also suggests that we could be part of her imagination in her mind. This contemporary twist will be far more interesting for our modern audience as