Review: "Anti-Gone" Rogue

Anti-Gone

Created by Sivan Raz

Presented by Needs More Work Productions at FRIGID New York's 5th Annual Little Shakespeare Festival at UNDER St Marks

94 St Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC

August 14-17, 2025

L to R: Elizabeth Fox, Emily Phelps, and Penelope Rose Deen, and Photo by Noah Simon Jampol

Anti-Gone, created by Needs More Work Productions, is something like a reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone, one of the most enduring tragedies of the Greek stage. Rather than retell the story in straightforward fashion, the company makes the audience a collaborator, placing us inside the questions of justice, memory, and communal responsibility that have haunted this text for centuries. Staged in the intimate confines of UNDER St. Marks as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival, the production opens with a bag at center stage, the body of Polynices within; players come and go; there is a bit of very fine crowd work, and the sound of a cello plucking and bowing. From the first moment, we are not passive spectators but witnesses to the last chapter of Thebes, sitting outside those storied city gates.

The action begins mid-stride, fitting for the conclusion of Aeschylus’ Theban cycle. The stage picture is minimal, keeping attention fixed on the performers and their words. The mood is lighter than expected, threaded with humor and carried by the live cello, whose sound bridges shifts from meta-theatrical commentary back into the ancient script. Costumes are functional and adaptable. There are tunics, loose trousers, and flowing wraps, allowing for quick shifts of character with the smallest of signifiers. Creon’s knitted yellow crown stands out, at once comic and deliberate, turning sovereign authority into something tactile, even absurd.

L to R: Emily Phelps, Sivan Raz, Emma Sarah Davis, and Penelope Rose Deen. Photo by Noah Simon Jampol

From the outset, boundaries dissolve. Performers wander casually, asking what we might like to be when we grow up. We stand outside the gates of Thebes with them, regarding the bag on the ground. When the chorus enters, voices unified, their rhythm pulls the room into the story’s pulse. The play builds toward confrontation until Creon, played by Emma Sarah Davis, halts the action, breaking from character. Another performer suggests she may need a snack. The role is passed to an audience member, script in hand, who completes the scene. Cruelty becomes something we all share, enacted rather than observed.

The most striking moment arrives with Antigone’s funeral procession. Sivan Raz, in the role, calls out, “Will no friend walk with me on my final road?” The cast joins her cortège, then turns to the audience, offering coins to anyone willing to accompany them. Those who rise are handed small oxidized tokens identical to the actors’, souvenirs of a fleeting collaboration. What might otherwise have been a familiar tragic moment is transformed into ritual: an audience bearing witness together, a story made communal in its grief.

L to R: Alyssa Góngora, Emily Phelps, Penelope Rose Deen, and Elizabeth Fox. Photo by Noah Sinon Jampol

Later, the company resists closure. The ending is declared inevitable, yet we are asked to intervene. Should the tale descend to Hades for his opinion? Should Hades come to us? Or should the people of Thebes revolt? Revolution wins by overwhelming vote, Creon is banished, and victory feels possible at last. Yet the director reminds us of Sophocles’ conclusion, delivering it in spare, quiet tones before the ensemble regroups in song, closing the night as it began.

Performances throughout are marked by wit and clarity. Alyssa Góngora shows sharp comic timing as the Guard and gravity as Teiresias. Penelope Rose Deen lends Ismene a fluid grace in movement and a voice that cuts cleanly through the room. Elizabeth Fox leads the chorus with precision and warmth, anchoring the ensemble’s unison song. Emily Phelps, as Haemon, brings musicality to both speech and gesture, while Davis’s Creon is commanding. Raz moves seamlessly between Antigone and the meta-role of director, grounding both with precision and control.

 Emily Phelps, Sivan Raz, Emma Sarah Davis (front), and Elizabeth Fox (rear). Photo by Noah Simon Jampol

Needs More Work Productions offers not a simple retelling but a provocation. The play insists that the audience carry the weight of its decisions, demanding that we inhabit the roles of witnesses and actors alike. We are asked what it means to inherit a tragedy, and what responsibilities come with such an inheritance. What are we to make of Antigone’s defiance when it is placed in our hands? What are we to do with the power of Creon, once it has been passed into the audience? What of the coins, small tokens of a collective ritual, once we leave the theatre and return to the city outside? Here in Lower Manhattan, in the twenty-first century, Anti-Gone insists that the story of Thebes is not yet over, and asks us what it means to keep telling it.

-Noah Simon Jampol