The Burial at Thebes

Aah, a 79 page book that I could read while dinner was baking.  Yesterday's New York Times reviewed a production of The Burial at Thebes.  The critic panned the costume and scenery as chintzy and a distraction to the beautiful translation of the tale of Antigone by Seamus Heaney.

That was all I needed to read to jump on the library's web site, reserve it and pick it up on the way home from work (a transaction that was just as smooth and efficient as on-line orders of cases of wine at Empire).

It really was a nice intermezzo to all the political intrigue I have been plowing through in The Devil's Chessboard and then Interlock.   Also a bit of a segue to Madness in Civilization which I hoped to have finished last night but didn't.  Obviously, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus so there's the interlock between books and her plight is a confrontation with absolute governmental authority versus human laws.

And of course, Seamus is magnificient.  Greek drama in a brogue.  The explicit conscientiousness of meter determined by character.  This morning I just ordered this play The Cure at Troy (Sophocles Philoctetes).  Plan also on looking online for copies to send to Houston for those lucky prep school scholars who my son treats to Greek after they finish Latin IV by midterm.

So a review as short and sweet as the playscript.  All the world's a stage and the plot is always recurring.