Welcome to a funeral like no other—where incense smolders, coffins talk back, and ghosts won’t rest until old scores are settled. Anti-Gone is a radical bilingual reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone, set in a 1980s Northern Chinese village at the height of a three-day burial ceremony. Following a critically praised New York City run, the production makes its UK debut at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
In the mourning hall, Polynikes, the eldest son of the Oedipus family, lies in his casket, but his spirit lingers in the human world. His late brother Eteocles waits to escrot him into the afterlife. Meanwhile, their surviving sisters are at odds. Antigone refuses to honor the brother she despises, and Ismene tries to keep her from causing more trouble. At the same time, Polynikes' young children attempt to force their way into the adult world with their own childishly almighty will.
As family tensions erupt and class ghosts rise from the grave, Anti-Gone explores how tradition, ideology, and memory haunt the living long after the rituals end.
What should have been a solemn funeral spirals into chaos.
As incense burns and tempers ignite, class struggles rage beyond the grave, coffins talk back, and ghosts settle old scores. Welcome to the ultimate family feud—where the dead won’t stay silent, and the living refuse to let go.
Anti-Gone will be performed at The Lime Studio, Greenside @ George Street as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025. This groundbreaking bilingual theater experience, following a successful New York run, features alternating monolingual performances in Mandarin and English, with surtitles provided for every performance.
The venue is accessible. For further access accommodations or press inquiries, please contact antigoneantaigong@gmail.com at least 3 days in advance.
Performances are scheduled as follows:Wednesday, August 13 at 11:30 AM (English Performance)
Thursday, August 14 at 11:30 AM (English Performance)
Friday, August 15 at 11:30 AM (English Performance)
Saturday, August 16 at 11:30 AM (Mandarin Performance)
Runtime: 50 minutes
Seating is unreserved and limited. Doors open shortly before the performance and latecomers may not be admitted.
Tickets are available
here.
Cast members include Yunyi Yang as Antigone, Lana Zhang as Ismene/Spinx, Zhi Qu as Haimon/Eunuch, Luna Peng as Kid, Jaden Zhao as Eteocles/Chorus, Yiwei Lu as Polynikes/Oedipus.
The play is written by Yiwei Lu, a writer from Shanghai, graduated from NYU Gallatin with a concentration on Epic Literature and Intellectual History. He has attended the Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival as Karturian in a production of the Pillowman, and he most recently played Shi Rendao in a production of The President’s Invitation by NoMad Theater, and Fang Dasheng in a production of Sunrise. He would like to thank Liu Zhenyun, Hajime Isayama, Walter Benjamin, as well as all the modern Chinese dialecticians for the inspirations.
To Yiwei, Anti-Gone started as a question—what if Antigone wasn’t resisting a tyrant, but instead defying her own family and the traditions they uphold? Setting the story in post-Cultural Revolution China allowed him to explore how oppression isn’t always enforced by a single ruler but by collective will, history, and ideology. The bilingual structure of the play was crucial—because in Mandarin, it unfolds as a dark comedy, while in English, it feels like a tragedy. Language shapes how we process conflict, memory, and power. At its core, this play is a clash of voices—political, personal, and generational—where the dead won’t stay silent, and the living refuse to let go.
The show is directed by Dejing Eloise Wang, a Brooklyn-based theatre director, playwright, and intimacy professional born and raised in Qingdao, China. They’re interested in the transdisciplinary intersection of theatre and science. Favorite directing credits: Of Ashes and Souls (The Flea - The Sam), Anti-Gone (A.R.T. New York), Tropopause (GAF 2024), Hollow Cross (Walkerspace Theatre), As You Like It (Labowitz Theatre), i want us both to eat well (BPPF). A recent graduate of NYU Gallatin. For their not-so-serious theatrical portfolio, visit
here. For their even more unserious and banal life portfolio, visit
@de.jing_.
Eloise describes the production as “anything but another adaptation where the martyr Antigone triumphs over the dictator Creon.” She explains, “As we repaint Sophocles’ Western canon with vulgar gossip and violent arguments, we remain faithful to the ancient debate between philia (familial loyalty) and nomos (law), even amid the chaos of a 1980s Chinese village funeral where incense smoke obscures the line between written rules and natural ones. For the past two years, it’s been my honor to direct this story—one with the mind of a philosopher, the heart of a fanfic writer, and the mouth of an average sweary villager—and we cannot wait to present it with a newly added dash of Scottish spirit at Edinburgh Fringe 2025.”
The creative team includes scenic, prop, and puppetry designer Junran Charlotte Shi, lighting designer Zijun Neil Wang, sound designer Henry Shen, costume, hair&makeup designer Yinxue Wang, and graphic designer Linxi Jiang.
The Producer and Dramaturg Zihe Tian is passionate about classical Chinese culture, literature and art, dedicated to making East Asian aesthetics and narratives accessible to more audiences. Some of her recent credits include Of Ashes and Souls (The Flea Theater - The Sam), Remorse (Dixon Pl), The Munchies (The Tank), Bad Horses (Vineyard Theater), Hollow Cross (Soho Rep Theater) etc. (BA: NYU, MFA: Columbia University.)
Zihe believes that bringing this story to an international stage like Edinburgh is not just an artistic act. It’s an act of translation, confrontation, and reclamation. Especially now, when global narratives are colliding and reshaping every day, Anti-Gone isn’t just timely—it’s urgent. “This play was never meant to fit neatly into East or West,” she says. “It speaks in Mandarin and English, but more importantly, it speaks across generations, cultures, and inherited wounds. At its heart, it’s about what happens when oppression isn’t enforced by a tyrant, but by tradition, memory, and the people closest to us.”
Particularly, Zihe points out that, in Act 3 of Anti-Gone, the stage transforms as Chinese shadow puppetry takes over, shifting the play’s realism into a world of silhouettes, light, and illusion. This choice is transgressive, not only in its disruption of traditional Western theatrical form but also in how it reclaims an ancient Eastern art form within a New York stage space historically dominated by Western aesthetics. Shadow puppetry, with its delicate yet haunting visual storytelling, introduces a rupture—blurring the boundaries between the living and the dead, the remembered and the forgotten. By integrating this distinctly Chinese artistic tradition into a contemporary bilingual production, Anti-Gone challenges expectations of what Eastern aesthetics can be in New York theater. It does not just borrow from tradition; it demands its presence, forcing audiences to engage with the weight of cultural inheritance in a way that is both poetic and radical.
More information can be found at our Official
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