Antigone's Bodies: Performing Torture

Abstract

Can torture be represented onstage without repeating and reveling in the violation of the victim? After reviewing some of the negative answers to this question, this article examines the more positive alternative presented by two treatments of the Antigone legend: Griselda Gambaro's Antigona Furiosa, and The Island, by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. By focusing spectator attention on the body of the actor (as distinct from the character) and by refusing to give the tyrant a body of his own, these two plays allow spectators to derive pleasure from the actor's performance of pain without rendering that pleasure sadistic.

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