Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Introduction
Antigone and Medea are two main productions of Greek classical drama. Both plays directed by women. Antigone featured a presentation by Fiona Shaw and the director being Niketi Kontouri. Medea featured a performance by Sophocles Peppas as Creon and Lydia Koniorduo as Antigone. The play directed by Deborah Warner.

Similarities
The opening scenes in the plays give up several purposes. They both start with providing the viewers with the past and the penalty of certain situations that the characters are part of. This brings the audience to the current time, in which the play happen thus enabling the audience to have a refreshed and comprehensible image of what feature of the myth the play highlights or on any adjustments made.

Another resemblance of the two Greek plays is that they both share the disobedience of the traditional position of women. According to the Greek cultures, women were to take the passive responsibility and on no account should they question a superior male. Women’s views were irrelevant in the society.

Differences
In Antigone, the first to go in the play are Ismene and Antigone while in Medea first to enter the play is the nurse. Antigone and Ismene engage in a dialogue over defying the declaration forbidding their brothers funeral bringing the audience to the present.  The nurse in Medea reminds the audience of the myth of the Golden Fleece. She also tells on the love involving Medea and Jason from start to the end.

The chorus in Antigone emerges in every scene and serves as the tone of the traditions. It also acts as guidance to the characters.  The chorus in Medea relates the reasons for the fight and death of Antigone and Ismene’s brothers (Eteocles and Polyneices). The nurse in Medea brings in an extremely anxious mood that stays all the way through the whole play.

Conclusion 
Well recognized Greek plays such as Medea and Antigone contain a number of intricate, female characters. The female characters acquire upon herself, the function of villain, the function of the victim and function of heroine.

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