Theatre
Antígona
Not translated into English
Trinidad Morgades Besari · 1991
Synopsis
Sophocles' tragedy transposed to the Equatorial Guinea of the dictatorship. Creon becomes “the president”, who steps forward promising freedom, peace and justice, then meets with an ever more furious refusal the voices of the people begging for his pity, while the dead are counted in the thousands. Antígona, young and full of life, dances to the sound of drums; when the guards bring her in for having buried the dead, she answers that one must obey only the laws made for the good of the people.
Context
The play appeared in 1991 in África 2000, the journal of the Hispano-Guinean Cultural Centre in Malabo. The Greek choruses become African voices and dances there, and the drums speak as in the country's ceremonies; critics see in it an African reading, attentive to the role of women, of resistance to oppression. The Bocamandja company of Malabo performed it in 2009 in Mahón and Ciudadela, in a staging by Silebo Boturu.
Who it is for
A brief play in Spanish, punctuated by dances and drums, for those who want to see a Greek myth become African.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the major plays of Equatorial Guinean theatre, it has been the subject of university studies in the United States.
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