Fleshless and voiceless Antigone. Thebes at the time of yellow fever, by Odin Teatret. . A heroine as a pure image of beauty, eros and death.

Abstract

Thebes at the time yellow fever by Odin Teatret stages Antigone as a pure image of beauty, eros and death, without flesh and without voice. She is the image of Munch’s Madonna. This depiction does not refer to the Hegelian interpretation of Antigone as pure ethical essence but agrees with the interpreta- tion given by Lacan who reads the character in relation to the functioning of desire: Antigone does not defend the sacred rights of the family but follows the direction of her passion, toward death. When in Thebes at the Time of yellow fever the portrait of Antigone is placed on the image of Gauguin’s Yellow Christ, the transfiguration of the character into a symbol of religious piety is accomplished. The sensual woman in love both with her brother and death, born of Oedipus and Jocasta’s incest and marked by her father’s curse, becomes the noble heroine – pure ethical substance of the Hegelian interpretation – ready to sacrifice her life to defend blood ties and the cult of the dead.