James Nevius’ adaptation of “Antigone” opens tonight in Kihei. Courtesy photo

The New York Times recently published an article on Antigone, the heroine of Sophocles’ renowned play, calling her “a 2,500-Year-Old Rebel With a Cause.” She was, The Times noted, “the original bad girl.”

Adapted over the years by legendary artists such as Jean Cocteau and Bertolt Brecht, Kihei playwright James Nevius felt inspired to rework the Greek tragedy in a new production presented tonight at ProArts Playhouse, for one night only.

Reimagining ancient Thebes as a world similar to our current one, we encounter a city reeling from the end of a devastating war, with a new regime promising order. “‘Antigone’ is a play that has very deep meaning for me,” Nevius explained. “I’ve been very close to the play my entire adult life.” He previously wrote a version “that was more about school boards and the banning of books. ‘Antigone’ is one of those titles that is banned from school libraries, because it might teach kids to defy authority.”

James Nevius has reimagined ancient Thebes as a world similar to our current one with a new regime promising order.
Ray Chin photo

Nevius felt compelled to create a new adaptation following the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. “I was thinking that we are at an inflection point, that this is an ‘Antigone’ moment in our modern world,” he said. “And would there be a way to adapt it to modern times and still have at its essence, the Greek tragedy, but make it a play set in the modern world.”

Presented as an immersive staged reading, it stars (in order of appearance) Patty Lee, Paul Jackel, Madeline Hamada, Lily Werner, Elisha Cullins, Tara O’Hanley, and David Negaard.

“I’m calling it an immersive stage reading because it will have a full score of incidental music pre-recorded,” he said. “It is going to have sound effects and projections, and the actors will all be in costume. So it will very much feel like you’re seeing a full production, with the exception of the fact that there will be scripts.”

Nevius is the author of the award-winning play “Murder in the Nth Degree,” which was named “Best New Play” by BroadwayWorld Hawaii and won the inaugural ProArts Playwriting Contest. Other plays include “Saint Mary Immaculate Virtual High School Reunion,” “A Murder in West Egg,” and “The Switch.”

As a musician, his recordings include “On the Nile: A Musical Landscape in 18 Parts,” which fused classical and ambient music. He just released the soundtrack for “Antigone,” available at the Bandcamp website.

“When I was writing the music that accompanies it about the mechanism of the state, one of my inspirations was the soundtrack to the original ‘Blade Runner,'” he noted. “Not because I wanted to sound like Vangelis, but I wanted to be thinking about that kind of dystopian future.”

A chorus was an essential element of Greek tragedy, that commented on the action and provided background information. In Nevius’ adaptation “one of the major things I changed is that a number of characters in the play never appear on stage with each other in the original. A lot of an original Greek tragedy is the chorus telling you what has just happened offstage. I thought that this is not going to work in 2026.”

Aristotle in “Poetics” examined the dramatic elements of plot and character in classical Greek tragedy highlighting the importance of catharsis and emotional release as a valuable social tool.

“One purpose of Greek tragedy is catharsis,” Nevius said. “Anyone at the end who feels an emotional release, that’s what a Greek tragedy is supposed to achieve.”

“Antigone” opens at 7:30 p.m. tonight at ProArts Playhouse.