Written by Lulu Raczka (after Sophocles)

Directed by Finn den Hertog

Review by Dominic Corr

The Tron Theatre

Banish the kings, the sprawling marble courtyards, and the patriarchal decrees; this twenty-first-century Thebes is built entirely from plush cushions, spilt booze, and the suffocating intimacy of a home no more unfamiliar than the posher side of Glasgow. Director Finn den Hertog’s revival of Lulu Raczka’s Antigone violently rips Sophocles’ ancient tragedy from the history books, entirely excising King Creon to hold audiences within the ferociously bonded, claustrophobic orbit of Oedipus’s doomed daughters Antigone and Ismene. Opening the Tron Theatre’s autumn/winter season in a bold co-production with Groupwork, this ferocious staging scales a mythic civil war down to a devastatingly domestic arena, letting the collateral damage of youthful rebellion detonate squarely in a modern Scottish living room.

Trapped within Milla Clarke’s brilliantly observed set – a plush, heavily cushioned teenage sanctuary peppered with personal trinkets – the siblings act out their anxieties through a decidedly modern Scottish lens, narrating the epic and voicing the other characters themselves. Running without an interval, the production does occasionally test the audience’s patience, with repetition occurring in the restrictive space. Early sequences depicting adolescent sleepover antics, drinking games, karaoke fantasies, and an ill-fated excursion to a local pub meander slightly, feeling somewhat untethered before the true, lethal stakes of their brothers’ bloody civil war are revealed; the harsh, brutal, and unjust realities of a simple night out for two women hit hard. However, this deliberate, unhurried pacing expertly lulls the auditorium into a false sense of security; when the tragic consequences of treason finally breach their cosy refuge, the tonal shift lands with the blunt force of a physical blow.

The elements from Sophocles’ original are still present; discussions of state authority, and the violence of conflict and individual conscience. But if anything, Emma Jones’ lighting does more to command the brutality of the world outside these wall-papered walls; flushes of vermillion pervert the sister’s tale, the encroaching reality of the world outside never far, always looming.

Embodying the titular rebel, here known more often as ‘Tiggy ’, Eilidh Loan is an absolute firework, frantically pacing the living room and hurling herself across the sofa with a breathless, impulsive, almost huffy energy that perfectly captures a young woman masking her grief with performative bravado. Her soaring, unexpected vocal moments offer a brief, tender glimpse of the terrified, vulnerable child beneath the aggressive exterior. Balancing this explosive presence is Holly Howden Gilchrist as the (seemingly) sensible, orderly younger sibling, Ismene. Her desperate attempts to maintain domestic harmony -arranging flowers and tenderly coaching her sister through a practice apology to save her life – are heartbreaking. The latter, closing acts, the tomb sealed and her safe space violated; Howden Gilchrist plants a flag as a cornerstone of the next generation of Scottish greats. The chemistry between the pair is electric and fiercely authentic; when the siblings inevitably clash over the illicit burial of their traitorous brother, Vicki Manderson’s visceral movement direction transforms their verbal sparring into desperate, startlingly committed physical brawls that feel exactly like petty, yet deadly, teenage warfare.

Amplifying this domestic intimacy is Lewis den Hertog’s sweeping multimedia integration, notably a colossal, frightening video projection of the heroine desperately digging into the earth, dwarfing the stage with choral laments and elevating the intimate drama to epic proportions, offering a dynamic reveal to separate the straight-through production. Rather than concluding with the martyr’s famous demise, Raczka’s script remarkably hands the final stretch to the sister left behind. Delivering a profoundly haunting epilogue alone on stage, Howden Gilchrist methodically gathers scattered flowers while recounting a quiet, ordinary life stretching out over decades of marriage and motherhood, forever haunted by her sister’s grand gesture.

By stripping away the bombast of classical heroics, this deeply affecting production excavates the devastating gravitational pull of sisterhood and becomes a tale for a contemporary age — asserting that the ultimate tragedy is not found in a martyr’s explosive defiance, but in the quiet, unrelenting agony of the sibling left behind to navigate the wreckage of their fractured bond. This sharp, humourous , and deeply tragic production forces us to reconsider the victims of classical heroics, cementing itself as an essential, emotionally staggering revival.

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