Day of the Dead

Halloweek came to a fitting closure with a ritual drama of the claims of the dead on the living: Antigone, performed at City Center by the National Theater of Greece. Sophoclis Peppas, as Creon, carried the play on his back, as it is only right that he should, since it is his folly, not the courage or folly of Antigone, that it is all about. Lydia Koniordou, in the title role, did the best she could with what she had to work with, but it is a dreadfully one dimensional part, though she did manage not to be overpriggish. Kosmas Fondukis was properly awe inspiring as Tiresias, in spite of his rather silly wheelchair, which seemed to belong on the boardwalk of Asbury Park in its glory days. And Nikos Arvinitis was quite wonderful as Haemon.

The audience was largely ethnic from places like Astoria, leading one to think of the scene as My Big Fat Greek Tragedy. There was also a scattering of high school or community college students, who expressed the usual ghetto resentment of their time being wasted, but to me, as a former teacher, their words lacked conviction, as if they were covering up for being moved in spite of themselves, and the coverup was a halfhearted convention.

The language was modern Greek, with the English projected in supertitles, and I could follow a little. The English was inept in places, for example when Creon is made to say, "I flutter with fear." In other places is seemed rather better than the standard translations I have seen. The modern language was fine with me, and I think I might have been a little annoyed by the modern pronunciation of the original.

I was back at work for a couple of hours at noon today, making sure the securities custody information system had been resurrected properly after its weekly visit to the halls of Hades. It was nice to have the floor nearly to myself.