GP1: Relationship - Application: Antigone and Ismene

GP1: Relationship - Antigone and Ismene

Overview Keeping the last post in mind, I will use the Relationship Guidepost to develop Antigone's relationship with her sister Ismene. To view the full text of Antigone (Fitts and Fitzgerald translation), click here.

Brief Summary of Application

• Factual: We are sisters, who grew up together in a family torn about by prophecy and ignorance (click here to read a summary of Oedipus Rex), which makes us very close.
• Emotional: I want her to prove her love by agreeing to bury my brother. If she loved my brother, she would bury him. If she loved me, she would help me.
• Love: Because she refuses to help me, I am distraught. I came into the scene with the expectation that, as my sister, she would blindly and willingly help me. She refuses, and the scene becomes one about the rejection of love.

Critique How is this technique helpful? Does it alone satisfy the needs of the scene, or does it require a supplementary technique?

• Helpfulness: 4/5 This question does not satisfy the scene. However, it proves helpful in building the relationships between Antigone and Ismene. The actor will know how to fight for his objective and how to react to his partner's lines, and it also raises the stakes. It allows me to ask the following questions (though, they are not limited to): What do I have to lose? If I love her and she refuses me, how does that make me feel? If I don't love him and he refuses me, how does that make me respond?

• Supplement Needed Coupled with Stanislavski's system of paperwork (given circumstances, background story, etc.), it can serve as a powerful foundation to creating an honest performance.