Polynices
“he is chic and brutal at the same time.” (Fourier, 11).
Polynices exists as a direct opposition to Eteocles, both in his attire and his presentation of information to his followers, the latter of which I will discuss in the projections section. I immediately saw Polynice’s as a punk, the quintessential privileged left-wing anarchist. He rode against Thebes with The 7, marking him a traitor to his family to be left to rot on the battle-fields. He is a soldier, like Eteocles, but in our playtext he is also “...a phD candidate and a technoshaman with ties to communists, socialists, and “the gays”” (Fournier, 19). However, Polynices is also an overt profiteer of the capitalist system his family adheres to in both his “chic”-ness (Fournier, 11) and his inherent privilege by being a part of the family, which I hoped this choice in attire would also help to accentuate.
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Polynices’ combat boots needed to look beaten in and worn, like the boots of a soldier. I would also design full arm sleeve tattoos to continue this notion of brutality, with harsh black lines depicting various greek mythos intertwined with modern meaning, like a corinthian helmet tucked with bullets and a Vietnam death card, and with his knuckles spelling out “7 Against Thebes” in ancient Greek: ζ επι Θήβη.
I wholly believed that by dressing Polynices in punk attire I would physically accentuate the belief system that he puts on display during the play while highlighting his own hypocrisy in that he really isn’t anything special. He pontificates about being a revolutionary incessantly throughout the show, and with David’s desire to not have any character be overtly right or wrong, I made the choice to lean more into my own interpretation of luxury punk attire as opposed to the DIY personal style of the eighty’s and ninety’s (Netland et al.). Polynices holds the notion of punk as a counter culture close to his heart, as a visual method of rebellion against his family, against everyone and everything around him. However, throughout the playtext he uses his ‘otherness’ as a tool to strike arguments with his family (Fournier, 19, 20), so it would make sense for him to be visually opposing his family as well. In all, Polynices visually exists as the other side of Eteocles in his appearance and apparel.
