Antigone Sentry Analysis

“Explain how you would perform the role of the sentry, in each of his two appearances, in order to reveal his change of attitude from his intial fear for his own life to his reliefe as he brings a guilty Antigone before creon” The sentry would be acted by a 5ft5 man, he would be feeble looking with messy brown hair, and he would also have a high pitched voice that breaks from time to time therefore showing his physical and social weakness through his pitch of voice. He would be wearing messy clothes to show he is a worker. All of these features show that the sentry is at the ‘bottom’ of the hierarchy and this is shown through his thin look. When the sentry first enters to tell Creon what has happened to the body of Polynices it is obvious
for the actor to see the immediate fear that the sentry has of Creon. His lines would be delivered erratically, because he wants to get it done quickly. The sentry would also stutter some lines to show his anxiety. he would also be pacing up and down the stage whilst pretending to act out what happened. The sentry when not acting would be nervously be twitching his hands.
When the sentry says what has happened ‘the body’s been buried’ he blurts this line out as he is aware of Creon’s orders. The sentry then delivers a monologue of what happens, he wants to make out as though he is innocent and Creon should not put on any blame on him. He is aware of Creon temper and in order to portray this he would constantly looked shocked ‘no clues of any kind at all’ in order to demonstrate this he would raise his eyebrows and speak in a higher pitch as if he is stunned right there whilst telling Creon what has happened. He then goes on to tell Creon how he was chosen to come and tell him what had happened to the body ‘so we decided we’d have to draw lots’ whilst saying this the sentry would nervously put his hand in his pocket an draws out the piece of straw and lifts it up pointing it towards Creon. Before the sentry leaves the stage he turns and with a sense of relief and a cheeky grin delivers, ‘I never thought I’d get out of here alive’, he knows he made a lucky escape and this is the start of the change we see from sentry, the intimidation he felt from Creon has gone as he is literally ‘given a life line’ The next time the sentry appears on stage is when he has found Antigone burying the body; he enters the stage with Antigone marching on with pride and a smug grin on his
face. He is eager to prove his innocents blurting out the line ‘we saw it’. The sentry is inflated with pride and disrespectfully says to Creon ‘end up calling you a liar’, he is so proud he has found the ‘disobeyer’ he forgets his position when around Creon and turns away and rambles what he truly thinks to the disbelief of Creon. The contrast in which the sentry felt before he told Creon what had happened to the pride he feels now, ‘this job was all mine’, puffing out his chest and pointing to it whilst grinning. The sentry then further demonstrating his pride goes on to tell to Creon how he found Antigone burying the body, ‘I saw this girl’ pointing to Antigone who is standing centre stage with her eyes closed and with no remorse. ‘picked up a few handfuls of the dry dust’, imitating what he saw by quickly swooping down to the floor, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes to show the shock he felt; ‘and scattered it on him’ delivering this line with a confused and higher tone. At the end of his speech the final line he delivers is, ‘you have to look after number one’, jabbing at his own chest with his feet parallel to his shoulders then quickly crossing his arms with his chest puffed out. This portrays that there is no longer any fear of Creon but overwhelming pride he feels for himself.