“(about the form of the performance)  this is more like a rave than a dramatic play – what begins as drama is actually rave and ritual. if you don’t dance it, it won’t make sense. people can become animals because people are animals. if forced to choose between text and bass, choose bass. it will be harder for the audience to dance if you put them in chairs”   (Fournier, 2).

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When initially pouring over the text of antigone lives* by Susanna Fournier, the director David Kennedy, and I took an extreme interest in applying context to the initial literature. Within the text is a framework of lines, minimal stage direction, and a listing of texts that Fournier used to create the literature. For us, the intent of the script was to challenge its creative team to spark literary ‘weirdness’ through its language and staging, and in turn, to be a skeleton in which we were given the gift of applying musculature. By being so sparse in the stage directions, Fournier gives the creative teams that take on her work the ability to put the show into any political, artistic, and societal contexts. In our case, the landscape of Western-Canadian theatrical art in 2025. 

Within her text, Fournier states that “it will be harder for the audience to dance if you put them in chairs” (Fournier, 2), giving us, the creative team, the rare opportunity to create an unorthodox viewing space within a familiar theatre (The Timms Centre for the Arts), which would let allow the audience to intimately experience the piece through participatory catharsis.