Antigone and the Too Many Suicides

(this is my new update schedule, by the by
Tuesdays and Fridays
get that tattooed on your arms so you will never forget)

Holy canoles you guys
never in my life have I read something
that so badly needed to be written by me instead of Sophocles
seriously this dude is captain of the S.S. Longwords
paddling liesurely along a lazy river ride of verbosity
on its way to a bunch of dead bodies
(the dead bodies being the bloodstained carrot
at the end of the proverbial stick this play has shoved up its ass)

For those of you who don’t know
which included me until like yesterday
Antigone is the sequel to Oedipus Rex
and what it lacks in clever plot twists
it makes up for in PATENTLY IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR
so I’m gonna try something a little different today
and instead of paraphrasing the whole play, like a chump
I going to write my own play
it is called Antigone by Sophocles
LET’S DO THIS

ANTIGONE BY SOPHOCLES

By Ovid

(But not the real Ovid, though, the fake one)

(by which I mean me)

Enter ANTIGONE. You can tell she’s important because her name is almost the whole title. Her sister ISMENE is also here.

ANTIGONE: BOO HOO MY FAMILY SUCKS

ANTIGONE is Oedipus’s daughter, so this is a pretty reasonable complaint

ISMENE: Whoah, hey, I’M in your family, you know.
ANTIGONE: Oh yeah, that’s true. Wanna help me bury our brother’s body?
ISMENE: You wouldn’t happen to be referring to the brother who got exiled from the kingdom by our other brother and then came back with an army to enslave everyone and now both our bros are dead, would you?”
ANTIGONE: THAT IS EXACTLY WHO I AM TALKING ABOUT! You had a 50-50 shot and you got it on the first guess!
ISMENE: Dude, the new king Creon very specifically told everyone not to bury that guy. You know, cause of the whole “returning with an army to enslave everyone” thing. Pretty sure Creon actually promised to kill anyone who tried to bury that guy.
ANTIGONE: Okay, which is more important: not being executed, or putting dirt all over our dead treacherous brother?
ISMENE: Uh…
ANTIGONE: You know what, Ismene, YOU’RE A WUSS. Looks like I’m gonna have to go on this suicide mission all by myself!
ISMENE: No, stop, come back.

Both of them leave, but Antigone leaves harder, cause she’s going to go bury bodies, whereas her sister is gonna go be a wuss up in a tower or whatever. Now here comes king CREON, and then this GUARD runs up to him.

GUARD: King Creon! Holy shit!
CREON: What’s up
GUARD: You know that body you wanted to let rot in the middle of town for personal reasons? SOMEBODY FUCKING POURED DIRT ALL OVER IT.
CREON: FUCK!!!
GUARD: Please don’t kill me.
CREON: Thinking about it.
GUARD: Wait hold on.

GUARD leaves, comes back carrying ANTIGONE

GUARD: It was her. She did it. We dug up the body and she did it again, like an idiot.
CREON: Whoah Antigone, what the fuck. Did you do this?
ANTIGONE: Ayup. Dead bodies are gross and they need to have dirt on them.
CREON: I’m glad you feel so strongly about dead bodies, cause you’re about to BECOME ONE.
ANTIGONE: Worth it.

GUARD drags ANTIGONE away. Now here comes HAEMON. He is not a digimon, even though his name sounds like one. He is actually CREON’s son, and also engaged to ANTIGONE, so this is gonna be awkward.

CREON: Hey son, hope you aren’t mad that I’m gonna execute your fiancee.
HAEMON: Why would I be mad? You’re just keeping it real.
CREON: I’m glad you see it that way.
HAEMON: No wait I lied, what the fuck is wrong with you?
CREON: Uhh … just a little something called JUSTICE. Think about it. If we buried the bodies of all our horrible traitors instead of letting them rot in the streets, what would our city be like then, huh?
HAEMON: More sanitary, mainly. Dude just put some dirt on that body already. It’s not that big a deal, even.
CREON: I’M THE KING, I DO WHAT I WANT.
HAEMON: Alright, good luck with that.

Meanwhile, ANTIGONE gets buried alive in a pit or something.

ANTIGONE: I’M BEING BURIED IN A PIT AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

Oh shit here comes TIRESIAS. He is being led around by a little boy, because he is blind and he likes little boys.

CREON: Yo Tiresias, my main man, what is cracking?
TIRESIAS: I heard there was some bad decisions getting laid down here so I had to just stop by and warn everyone not to make those again.
CREON: Yeah, that is kind of what you’re always doing. That’s why I always listen to your prophecies and do what you tell me.
TIRESIAS: Oh man, that’s a relief. I was just gonna tell you that you shouldn’t bury your son’s girlfriend and leave corpses rotting in your streets, because burying dudes really isn’t a big deal.
CREON: FUCK YOU, I’M THE KING, I DO WHAT I WANT.
TIRESIAS: Okay dude, well I hate to tell you this but everybody you love is going to die, starting right now. Alright, come on Bobby, let’s go back to the mountains and watch snakes have sex.

TIRESIAS leaves, along with his BOY-SLAVE. Everyone is now fucked.

CREON: Yo advisors, I am suddenly very nervous about my terrible decisions. What do you think?
ADVISORS: We think you should probably listen to Tiresias. And your son, and Antigone, actually. Also us. In fact, the more we think about it, the more sure we are that you are the only person who agrees with what you are doing right now.
CREON: Oh shit, you’re right. Guess I’ll just go release Antigone now and live happily ever after.

CREON leaves. Then a MESSENGER shows up

MESSENGER: Oh shit guys, everyone killed themselves.
GUYS: Who’s everyone?
MESSENGER: Oh, well, first Antigone killed herself. Anyone who didn’t see that coming raise your hand. Then Haemon busted into her pit and found her dead, so first he tried to kill Creon, but he must not have tried very hard because he ended up just stabbing himself. And now in a couple minutes I’m gonna tell Creon’s wife Eurydice (no relation) about this and she’s gonna stab herself too.

That happens. Oh, and here comes CREON again. What does this guy want?

CREON: I’m back from witnessing the suicide of my son! …Aaaaand more dead bodies. Great. All up in my house. Guys, my life is pretty much the worst now. I’m going to my room.

CREON leaves forever

ISMENE: Remember me? I’m still alive!

CHORUS: The moral of the story is that if someone tells you they are going to kill you if you do a thing, maybe don’t do that thing!

THE END.

(Bonus points if someone does a staged reading of this and films it.)

8 thoughts on “Antigone and the Too Many Suicides

  1. I’ve missed you so much! BTW why have you not done Aristophanes’ Lysistrata? The entire nation of Greek women cock-blocking thier husbands and boyfriends to end war. I cant imagine a play more up your alley!

    • Holy shit you’re right. I totally forgot about that one. When I was little my dad was in a play called Liz Estrada which was … well, let’s just say that by the end of the play there were a bunch of dudes in gang colors running around with 8-foot foam erections.

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  4. I love this format, and it’s so fucking funny. Jesus.

    I told all four of the people who read my story/writing/whimsical blog about you, plus my friends, because you’re so awesome god dammit.

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