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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Antigone [on strike] review – shades of Shamima Begum as Sophocles’s rebel royal is exiled

Sophocles Shamima Begum Syria
Ali Hadji-Heshmati and Hiba Medina in Antigone [on strike] at Park theatre.
Polis matter … Ali Hadji-Heshmati and Hiba Medina in Antigone [on strike] at Park theatre. Photograph: Nir Segal

The story of Sophocles’ rebel princess is clearly crossed with that of Shamima Begum’s stripped citizenship in this participatory production, written and directed by Alexander Raptotasios. Esmeh (Hanna Khogali), is a formerly radicalised Islamic State bride, groomed at the age of 14, now stranded in Syria, her British citizenship revoked. In Britain, her sister, Antiya (Hiba Medina), is staging a protest-to-the-death against an intransigent government to get Esmeh home.

The stage, designed by Marco Turcich, has shades of a Greek debating chamber, with a white platform and lectern, but with added screens for scrolling news reports, the floor alternately a TV studio and the House of Commons where the home secretary (Phil Cheadle) defends the banishing of Esmeh into stateless exile.

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