Illustration by Ji Ho Kim

NOT ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL—Ruff Yeager’s adaption of “Antigone” reveals patterns of dark history repeating during the Age of Pandemic and political instability in America.

By Andrew Penalosa

An egomaniacal ruler, obsessed with building a wall during a time of plague, refuses to admit defeat. He belittles allies and enemies with equal disdain as he puts himself ahead of the republic. Drunk with power, he has become his own Light of the World.

Mar-a-Lago was not around when the Greek uber-playwright Sophocles wrote “Antigone” in 441 BC, but one would never know. Classic themes are classic for a reason.

Director Ruff Yeager returned to his fave Maestro of Mayhem with his adaptation of “Antigone at the Wall,” which amps up Sophocles with the COVID pandemic, a mighty democracy in danger and an orange tyrant rampaging over a Temple of Zoom.

Like students in the Age of Remote Education, tyrannical terror Creon (a fantastic Walter Murray) uses Zoom for a press conference to inform subjects that loyalty is the price of safety. He urges his tribe not to panic, obey the law and trust him to keep them safe from the virus. Antigone (compelling Lauren Brazell), his niece, has hit her limit. Her brother who died on the wrong side of Creon and the wrong side of the wall cannot get a proper burial because Creon refuses to bury him at all. Her well-intentioned sister Iseme (a solid Bianca Venegas) warns her not to cross their megalmanical uncle, who is known to draw up lists of enemies, then scratch them off one by one. Antigone, a singular strong woman in a man’s world, refuses to be another brick in the wall — a noble, but fatal decision.

Even at first glance it was clear that Brazell’s muscular post-punk Antigone does not suffer fools gladly. She seemed lifted from the grooves of a Green Day album, ready to battle an American Idiot. Like Gandhi and Mandela, she gained strength and clarity in prison, proving that resistence is not futile.

Words may be our most inexhaustible source of magic, but designer/technical director Michael Buckley is a close second. He and Zoom Webinar Engineer Alvin Angeles worked their illusory sorcery, creating seamless scene transitions on a viable stage of photons.

Stage manager Maria Mangiavellano upped her already top-flight game by transcending chaos and holding it all together.

Murray channelled Trump through Creon, demonstrating once again that ego, tyranny and evil are timeless. Yeager’s deep knowledge of classical theater informed his decision to dust off a Sophocles nugget and his affinity for popular culture inspired a retrofit. (A rare misfire was the surfed out Sentry. Too much Ridgemont High, not enough Hunger Games.)

Yeager and Co., like Antigone herself, would not let “Antigone at the Wall” go quietly into the night. Somewhere, Sophocles smiled.