A Youthful Antigone for Today at the Cultural Center

Silas Jones fixed his gaze on Gaylin Davey and delivered his line. He was fierce, powerful — and the four other actors gasped from the audience.

“Oh my gosh, that was so good,” one of them breathed out. Silas turned to her and smiled.

“Guys, keep going!” director Tamara Salkin urged. “Don’t stop!”

Silas refocused, finishing the scene he had rehearsed so many times. The room was silent and the young girls looked to Salkin, whose only feedback were tears welling in her eyes.

“Are you crying?” they teasingly cooed.

“I’m not crying! I’m just weepy,” she laughed back. “You guys just make me so happy.”

Salkin recalled the moment during a telephone interview on Thursday afternoon, eight days before curtain. She was nursing a fever with hot tea, determined to be back on her feet in time for not just any production, but South Fork Performing Art’s first ever — with a cast that hasn’t graduated high school yet.

“When people come, they’re not even going to really know that these are students. They’re that good,” Salkin said. “They are the most professional students I know. They take pride in their work. They want to put on a really good show.”

And that is exactly what they’ll do with “Antigone Now,” she said, opening Friday, December 14, at the Southampton Cultural Center. The play, by Melissa Cooper, is a reimagining of the ancient and universal Greek tale, except the rebellious and intense Antigone is in the midst of a bombed-out city, having defied her uncle to bury her disgraced brother.

“I told the students, ‘It’s a little bit different probably than things you’ve done before — there’s incest and murder and dead bodies. It’s a little bit darker,’” Salkin said. “When we had our first read-through, we all sat in a circle and they’re all reading their parts, and their natural instincts were just so good. Afterwards they said to me, ‘Wow, that’s a really good script.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s really good.’”

[caption id="attachment_87638" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Silas Jones, an 8th grader at East Hampton Middle School. Dane Dupuis photo[/caption]

The strength of the play alone lends itself to black box theater, a style the creative team has taken quite literally. Their set of 10 black boxes transform throughout the action, from a chair or a park bench to a coffee counter or a bed, forcing the audience to use their imaginations.

“There’s not a lot of costume or props or lighting or sound,” Salkin said. “We don’t even have microphones. We’re going super bare bones so all the focus is on the actors and what they’re bringing to the show.”

Gaylin Davey, a sophomore at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, leads the cast as Antigone. The youngest cast member, Dakota Quackenbush, is in seventh grade at East Hampton Middle School, where Silas Jones is a year above her, and Zoey Engeldrum is in eighth grade at Hampton Bays Middle School. Emily Glass is a freshman at Pierson High School and Madeline Kane is on the cusp of graduation from East Hampton High School.

“Madeline brings a real ‘big sister’ energy to the set,” the director said. “She’s always willing to help somebody, she has really good instincts and she’s not afraid to trust her instincts. For the younger students to see she’s really confident in making these choices, and that I accept her choices, it really allows her to rise up to the occasion, too. They can learn from each other.”

Through character, scene and story arc analysis, the young actors have agency to make their own decisions about the play and determine their motivation, Salkin said. As they do, she recognizes herself in them.

“Theater attracts a certain kind of person that, maybe, is an outgoing person, but is also shy,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people in the theater have a lot to say — they have a lot of ideas and a lot of creativity — but they’re also maybe a little awkward, because they’re just bubbling from all this creativity, and I was definitely that kid. I see so much of me in them, but I’m so happy that they’re having more opportunities than I had.”

The Southampton native first got on stage at age 3 and, by all accounts, that was it. Theater and dance became her life.

She would graduate from Stony Brook University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, with a focus on American plays, and a master’s of science in educational theatre from The City College of New York — before returning to the East End to start South Fork Performing Arts with East Hampton native and music director Amanda Borsack Jones.

“Growing up out here, straight plays weren’t really done in the schools and I felt like that was something I was missing out on,” she said. “I was raised by a single mom who wasn’t willing to drive me way up the island to do plays in other places, or especially the city. That was not happening.

“After college, I did nothing for a long time,” she continued. “I was a babysitter, I worked at a bookstore, and I finally decided, ‘I really want to have a career in theater.’ But I wanted to teach it.”

Her young actors are also embracing the roles they never expected — because, even at their age, they’ve been type-casted. Zoey, who has primarily taken on male roles despite being a girl, is playing Antigone’s sweet, hopeful older sister. Gaylin is finally taking on a lead role — “It just baffles me that she never had the opportunity; she’s killing it,” Salkin said — and Silas, who has previously performed in musicals, is exploring a new side to his artistry in a straight play.

It is part of the reason his monologue reduced Salkin to tears, she said.

“I was just so proud of him, because it really showed me that he is learning from the experience and taking all the work I’m having them do and putting it into his dialogue,” she said. “It was really a great thing to see. It was so beautiful.

“In the community theater circuit or the schools, they don’t really perform Greek plays anymore because they’re hard and they’re hard to understand,” she continued. “So seeing a modern adaptation of it is a cool experience. I think people can learn a lot about how you can have a really good show without a lot of pizzazz and spectacle — because they’re not gonna see that on our stage, at all, but they’re gonna see a good show.”

South Fork Performing Arts will present “Antigone Now” on Friday, December 14, and Saturday, December 15, at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center, located at 25 Pond Lane in Southampton. Tickets are $15 and $10 for students under age 21. For more information, visit southforkperformingarts.com.