It’s apparent from her subtitle that Anna Ziegler is not in the mood for nuance. Her Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) suggests an unconventional retelling of Sophocles’ classic, and Ziegler’s fiery, angry take drags it through the mud (and blood) in impressively tumultuous fashion.

 

Ziegler begins with Dicey, a woman who doubles as the Chorus and (maybe) the writer’s stand-in, someone who was deeply affected by Sophocles’ play in school. Now 40 and pregnant, Dicey meets a young woman named Antigone on a flight. Dicey ends up narrating Antigone’s story, set in a place both ancient and modern—early on, Antigone hooks up with a dive bar bartender named Achilles (no, not that one).

 

Pregnant by her first cousin and fiancé, Haemon, Antigone decides on an abortion to end her family’s incestuous lineage: her father, Oedipus, had four children with his own mother Jacosta. But her uncle Creon (Haemon’s father), who reluctantly became king of Thebes following Oedipus’ death, decrees that abortion is illegal; hence, his beloved niece could get the death penalty if she goes through with her decision.

 

Ziegler cleverly conflates Antigone’s and Dicey’s pregnancies, right up until the excessively—but necessarily—bloody climax. It’s simultaneously unnerving and bracing to watch Zeigler’s poetic polemic, aided by Tyne Rafaeli’s vigorous direction. Standing out in the cast are Celia Keenan-Bolger, truly heartrending as Dicey/Chorus; Haley Wong, a sadly fragile Ismene, Antigone’s sister; and Tony Shaloub, whose Creon mixes appealingness with appallingness. At the center in the treacherous title role, Susannah Perkins lets it all hang out, physically and emotionally, as she provides the human heart of this traumatic but touching tale.

 

 

 

 

Julissa Reynoso’s story is an admirable and inspiring one. Born in the Dominican Republic, she came to America as a young girl, grew up in the Bronx, attended Harvard, Cambridge and Columbia, and became a Wall Street attorney. She was tapped to work in the Obama administration as one of Secretary of State Clinton’s diplomatic aides, taking part in the normalization of relations with Cuba as ambassador to Uruguay. However, on the basis of Public Charge, the play she wrote with Michael J. Chepiga, her fascinating life and unselfish public service does not fully translate to the stage.

 

The problem is not so much a matter of importance—which Reynoso’s life story has in spades—but rather its lack of urgency, even as it unfolds and covers plot threads of varying heft. Even a resourceful director like Doug Hughes can’t satisfyingly navigate threads that jump back and forth in time and move among a large cast of characters. It’s both too much and not enough, since there are a lot of intriguing ideas and complicated personalities that come and go—especially in the foreign service arena Reynoso moves around in—but it’s been sanitized to make it less messy than Reynoso’s time in government surely was. 

 

That’s too bad, for Reynoso’s is a story that needs telling. Here is the classic American tale of an immigrant making it good, living her American dream of working for the state department and trying to effect positive change. At least Reynoso and Chepiga never make her overly heroic; if anything, she’s made almost too naïve, seemingly always surprised at her own diplomatic career trajectory and the important roles she plays in so many difficult political episodes. That might have to do with Zabryna Guevara’s acting as Reynoso, who accentuates that naiveté too broadly, making our heroine wide-eyed more often than necessary.

 

There are interesting moments in Public Charge, especially when it shows that idealistic officials’ effecting positive change happens very slowly—if at all. But diplomacy is even more chaotic than we see onstage, as witness the insanity we hear about every day.