The Other Place, After Antigone – Alexander Zeldin’s New Play at the National Theatre

After 6 weeks at sea, I had somewhat been looking forward to watching the first play since my return to civilisation. Ellie and I have many fond memories of watching plays at the National Theatre.

NOT ALL BAD

The description of ‘The Other Place, after Antigone’ by Alexander Zeldin, didn’t sound all bad. A re-imagining of an ancient Greek play, roughly 2,500 years after its first showing. And not just any play, but one of the three Theban plays, which connect to the story lines of many more works of the day. Incest, fratricide, suicide, general homicide, grief, greed, insanity, those are all great building blocks for a fun night out at the theatre, as far as I am concerned.

 

All pics (c) National Theatre

A BIT OF A HOTTIE, APPARENTLY: TOBIAS MENZIES

My good wife, in particular, and our friend Eve, were very excited about the lead male actor, Tobias Menzies, who, apparently, had done a sterling job in looking sexy while playing Prince Philipp in The Crown, entirely unbeknownst to me. The rest of the cast didn’t look too bad either. Emma D’Arcy, who is known for her role in House of the Dragon, and Nina Sosanya from Love Actually, among others.

90 MINUTES

Furthermore, the location of the National Theatre at London’s lively South Bank meant that we could easily walk there and back from our flat. Maybe the biggest plus was the short length of 90 minutes with no intermission. I’ve sat through too many 3-hour plays in recent years to give any play longer than two hours a chance these days.

MELTDOWN CHEESEBURGERS

The Meltdown Cheeseburgers with rosemary fries at KERB at the Understudy inside the building turned out to be very tasty and – for London prices – rather affordable. We made our way to the Lyttelton Theatre. Our seats were pleasantly spacious, with good views of the stage, despite being located in the last row of the circle, at maximum distance from the stage. For £20 per ticket that is excellent value for money.

THE STAGE

The stage shows the vast American-style open-space living room with combined kitchen. The far end (from the audience) consists of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors which open onto the veranda, behind which you can spot the garden with some tall trees.

THE PLAY BEGINS

Without much warning, the play begins, while the light in the auditorium is still on, by the first actor entering the stage and sitting down on the comfy rotating armchair in front of the sliding doors.

 

THE STORYLINE

The storyline is quickly told. We are in the recently refurbished house that Chris (Tobias Menzies) and his wife Erica (Nina Sosanya) have inherited from Chris’s unnamed brother, after the latter had ended his life by hanging himself from a tree in the backyard, more than a year ago. They had decided to spread the ashes of Chris’s brother in a little ceremony with friends and family, to draw a line under the horrible events of the past and to move on with life.

THE DAUGHTERS

The deceased man’s daughter Issy (Alison Oliver), Chris’s niece, luckily already lives on the premises, after having run out of money trying to make it in far-away London. Her sister Annie (Emma d’Arcy), we learn, had gone AWOL shortly after the tragedy, and no one had heard much of her since, except that she now lived far away ‘near the coast’ and was planning on joining the family get-together. Other family members arrive and everyone waits for Annie to turn up.

A THEFT

When she finally does, she immediately causes a disturbance by making it clear that she is not fine with the ashes of her father to be scattered. She wants the ashes to stay at the place where her father lived and died. Chris makes it clear that this is no option for him. Annie ends up stealing the ashes from the urn behind Chris’s back and putting them into a resealable sandwich bag. Chris and the rest of the family head off to the pre-arranged scattering ceremony. When Chris returns, he is upset, for obvious reasons.

AN EMPTY URN, INCEST, AND A SUICIDE

We learn that – during the ceremony – in front of his friends, family and work colleagues, he had pretended that there were ashes to be scattered and just kept on going ahead with his duties. However, now back at his house, he wants the ashes of his brother back. There is a fair bit of shouting and a haphazard body search involved, some tears, and – you guessed it – incestual cravings and another suicide.

SO FAR SO GOOD

So far, so good. It’s just that there was nothing during those ninety minutes that would’ve grabbed my attention. Annie’s character in particular simply sounds very dull and annoying throughout. I didn’t spot any great acting by the other thespians either.

AT BEST FORGETTABLE

I’ll freely admit that I’m only a casual theatregoer, with very little knowledge about the subject. However, great plays, in my mind, have always, often over many centuries, managed to capture even crude minds like mine. Shakespeare, as is well known, wrote his plays for guys like me, simpletons without any deeper insights or sophisticated expectations. This play, to me, was at best forgettable, but, more accurately, rather annoying.

  

ALEXANDER ZELDIN

I was so disappointed, that I made the effort of researching the playwright and director, 39-year old Alexander Zeldin, whom I had not come across before. On first glance, a formidable professional. I love that he has written highly acclaimed plays about austerity Britain and how it has harmed the very fabric of our society. Moreover, I love that he now mainly lives in Paris and even writes plays in the French language. He has a very international background and has worked extensively in the U.S., Russia, South Korea, the Middle East.

IN HIS OWN WORDS

In his profile on the website of the Onassis Foundation, who sponsored part of his work for this play, he writes: “My aim […] – as a writer and theatre maker – was to grapple with how an ancient, iconic character such as Antigone can speak to me very personally but also to our current world. I never look to retell the same stories that we already know: “Antigone”, “Othello” etc. I believe that for stories to be really true, they need to find a new shape each time. For this reason, after a long search and allowing myself to be inspired by the landscape of Greece, both physical and cultural, I found myself rethinking the main dynamic between state and individual/natural law in Antigone. Instead of imagining how the state acts on the individual through the family, the state is the family in my play. This is how I was able to find the resonance of the ancient in the now.”

ART AS A MORAL ACT

In a Financial Times interview, he mentioned that he believes that “art is a moral act – we need it,” and that The Other Place “draws on Sophocles’s tragedy to ask: what do we do when faced with suffering around us?” Zeldin is being quoted as saying “Antigone is a play about the aftermath. It’s not about someone resisting arrest or something: it’s about two forms of grief. It’s a modern tragedy around one person wanting to erase the past and one person wanting to preserve it. We have radically different ways of dealing with grief.”

NOT GIVING UP JUST YET – CONCLUSION

I’d be willing to sit through another one of his plays and see how I like it. With regards to ‘The Other Place’, though, 2 out of 5 from me, and that’s me being kind. Next up: another Sophocles remake: Robert Icke’s ‘Oedipus’ with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville at the Wyndham’s Theatre. Who knows, maybe Ellie & I will squeeze in two more: Rami Malek and Indira Varma in a rendition of ‘Oedipus’ at the Old Vic, and Elektra at the Duke of York’s Theatre with Brie Larson.

Looking for more reviews of plays? Check out my posts about Simon Godwin’s Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes, Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap, Simon Woods’ Hansard, No Man’s Land with Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, and: The Lehman Trilogy, one of the best plays we have seen in many years. Equally, feel welcome to catch up on my recent participation in the Northwest Passage Expedition.

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2 Comments

  1. This is such a refreshing post!
    Thank you so much for your honest opinion. I have also sat through plays that I have tried to understand and appreciate, but in the end they just don’t quite cut it for me, but I feel as though I’m supposed to like them.
    The cheeseburgers sound good, and great to know they were a good price too.

    Thank you so much for sharing.

    1. Thank you for reading and leaving a comment, Sally. I might be back there just for the cheese burgers haha… Also, luckily Ellie & I had had a real good theatre experience last Wednesday. Blog post to follow shortly. 🙂

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