NEW VOICES IN CLASSICAL RECEPTION STUDIES
Issue 6 (2011)
A N TI G ON E S T OP P E D
IN
B E LF AS T : S T ACE Y G RE G G ’ S I S M E NE
© Anastasia Remoundou-Howley
ABSTRACT
This article explores the resurgence of Sophocles’ Antigone in Stacey Gregg’s
Northern Irish play. Gregg transplants the Greek heroine’s apolitical act in Northern
Ireland to question politics, society, as well as estimate the impact of the internal
sectarian divisions and the (im)possible means of reconciliation in the present and
the future. The political inflections and valuable individual insights into notions of
violence, mourning, history, memory, ethics, nationalism, belonging, community, civil
disobedience, kinship, love, hatred, justice, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace
with which Gregg invests her adaptation, are delivered with admirable originality.
Taking over from the 1980s ‘conventionally dated’ (Hall 2004:20-21) political conflicts
to a new millennial figuration of the myth, the young playwright interrogates Irish
history, politics, culture and the legacy of revenge in Northern Irish society. Most
significantly, Gregg voices the troubling effects of violence and its exorcism through
mourning practices that shift their focus on Ismene’s persona after whom her version
takes its title. Gregg takes note of the immense impact the McCartney case had in
Irish society in recent years, and in 2007 decides to adapt Antigone as a response to
that overwhelming real-life family drama which resembles the two sisters’ agon
against the state and each other to bury their slain brother.