Theatre / Sophocles’ Antigone, by Greek Theatre Now. At the Australian National Botanic Gardens, until April 21. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

By any estimates, Sophocles’ Antigone is a terrific play.

Sharply modern in its juxtaposition of different ethical and philosophical concerns, with sexist remarks by King Creon that clearly would have hit home even when they were written, it nonetheless retains a deep sense of ancient Greek religious respect for the authority of the gods.

As a tragedy about human shortsightedness and arrogance, it is hardly an essay, but it does lead to the conclusion that human beings need wisdom to survive.

Staged in the intimate surroundings of the Burbidge Amphitheatre, this performance was directed credibly by Cate Clelland with a small team of actors, some doubling where needed, aided by coded costumes designed by Tania Jobson and Clelland. Every word could be heard perfectly.

As well, through the work of movement director Lachlan Ruffy, the small chorus was individualised, with dialogue distributed around members and rhythmical devices added to give impact. Their actions were not quite dance, but not naturalistic either.

The chorus became a driving force, led with forceful  knowhow by Kate Eisenberg and by Neil McLeod, whose age and beautiful voice allowed him to stand in for the script’s stipulation that the chorus be composed of Theban elders.

Lasting for a spare 90 minutes, the play jumps into the action in proper Aristotelian fashion with a scene between the passionate Antigone and her more pragmatic sister Ismene.

Here the sometimes-clunky translation by Ian Johnston failed to capture the striking character contrast between the two sisters.

There also seemed to be a casting problem, for while Ella Buckley as Antigone was forthright and passionate from the outset, so was Sienna Curnow as Ismene in equal measure, as if there were not one but two Antigones in the play.

Translations for the stage are always a case of you win a few; you lose a few, and for the larger part, the choral sections were colloquial rather than poetic, although Sophocles’ great Ode to Man, brilliantly delivered, was an exception.

And a win for Johnston’s translation was seen in a touch of almost Shakespearean comedy when the Bolshie guard (Justice-Noah Malfitano) comes to report on Antigone’s forbidden attempt to bury her brother.

The modern translation also works in the moving scene between Creon and his son Haemon (Alastair McKenzie) and a  harrowing scene between the 100 per cent-reliable blind prophet Teiresias (Michael J Smith) and the intellectually-blind King Creon (Ian Russell).

In this pivotal scene, the audience is momentarily lulled into thinking the king has come to his senses until we realise it’s too late and the catastrophic conclusion of the play ensues with arrival of an un-comic messenger (Crystal Mahon) and Eurydice, wife of Creon (Sarah Hull) and the inevitable pious conclusion about the need for wisdom.

Well, almost the conclusion. Director Clelland was not content with that and brought the chorus back for a rousing paean to Dionysus, god of drama (and wine).

This outdoor performance attracted a bumper audience and suggests that there is a demand for Greek tragedy, which is where drama, as we know it, all began.