Here are the Audition Pieces for Antigone, if you wish to prepare in advance (this is NOT compuslory).
ANTIGONE (Female Role)
Oh tomb! Oh bridal bedchamber! Oh deep
Cave of a dwelling-place, under guard forever,
Where I must go to be with my own dear ones,
Most of whom Persephone has received
Dead among the shades! And I, the last
Of them, will go in the worst way of all
Down there before my portion of this life
Comes to me.
But as I go I hold strong hopes
That I will arrive as one loved by my father,
Loved by you, mother, loved by you, my own
Dear brother-for when you died I washed and
Laid out
Your bodies properly with my own hands
And poured libations at your graves.
And now!-
Polyneikes – for tending to your body,
This is my recompense! Yet those who have
Clear thoughts think I did well to honor them
CHORUS (Male/Female)
Eros, unconquered in
Combat! Eros, that Leaps down upon
The herds! You That pass the night-
Watch on a girl’s Soft cheeks, You
That cross the Open sea and
Roam from hut to Hut in the far
High fields — neither The immortals nor
Man, who lives only a day, can escape From you, and he
Who has you
Inside himself
Goes mad.
You that pull
The reins of just
Minds toward injustice, disfiguring
Men’s lives; You
That stir up this
Strife between two
Men of the same
Blood, while victory
Goes to te force
Of love in the gaze: the
Desiring eyes of
The bribe shine with
Wedding joy-this power on its throne rules
Equally with the great
Laws, for the goddess
Aphrodite at her play
Cannot be conquered.
HAIMON (Male)
Father, the gods endow men with good sense
Highest of all the things that we possess.
And I could not say in what way your words
Are wrong —and may I never be capable
Of knowing how to say that. But someone else
Might have a good thought, also. My natural role
Is to watch out for you — for the things that people
Might say or do, or what they might blame you for.
And to the common citizen, when you Dislike some
word he says, your eye becomes a terror. But I hear
what’s in the shadows — How the city mourns for this
girl, and how She of all women least deserves the
worst Of deaths for the most glorious of deeds— Since
she did not allow her own true brother, Fallen in
slaughter, still unburied, to be destroyed by flesh-
eating dogs and birds of prey. Isn’t golden honor what
she merits? Such talk is spreading secretly in the dark.
ISMENE (Female Role)
Oh! But sister, you must understand —
Our father, after beating out his eyes
Himself, with his own self-striking hand, then died Infamous and detested, because of crimes That he himself discovered he’d committed! Then his mother and wife — the woman had Two titles — with a twisted loop of rope Violently disfigured her own life. Third, our two brothers on a single day, A wretched pair, with hands aimed at each other, Killing themselves have shared a doom in common. And now we two, the last ones left—consider
How much worse death will be for us if we ‘ Defy the law and flout the rulers’ vote And power—we must keep in mind that first, We’re born as women, we’re not brought into being To war with men; and second, that we are ruled By those whose strength is greater, and we must yield To this —and to much that’s worse than this. So I
Will plead with those under the earth to feel
For us and pardon us, because I ‘m forced
To act as I do, and I ‘ll obey the rulers,
For it makes no sense to do things that are futile.
KREON (Male)
Understand that rigid wills are those
Most apt to fall, and that the hardest iron, Forged in fire for greatest strength, you’ll see Is often broken, shattered. And with only A small sharp bit, I’ve noticed, spirited
Horses are disciplined. For grand ideas are not allowed with someone who is the slave
Of others. . .
First, this girl knew very well How to be insolent and break the laws That have been set. And then her second outrage Was that she gloried in what she did and then She laughed at having done it. I must be No man at all, in fact, and she must be The man, if power like this can rest in her And go unpunished. But no matter if She is my sister’s child, or closer blood Relation to me than my whole family Along with our household shrine to Zeus himself, She and her sister by blood will not escape The worst of fates—yes, I accuse her sister Of conspiring in this burial, as much As she.
To his men Go get her!
