How can the saga of history's most dysfunctional family, written by Sophocles in 440 B.C., remain relevant today?

Dignity Players tackles that question with a poetic adaptation by Lewis Galantiere of Jean Anouilh's 1943 update of Antigone, written during the Nazi occupation of France. The drama's focus on choices between political compromise and the idealism of the French resistance made Anouilh one of the world's major post-war playwrights.

In his director's notes, Mickey Handwerger asserted, "It is impossible not to find relevance to the world we live in today. That bridge between the world of old and the world of now is the very reason Dignity Players selected Antigone to open its 2008 season. We hear news every day of genocide in places like Darfur and of ethnic cleansing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Antigone is one of the four children of King Oedipus, who was fated to murder his father and marry his mother and gouge out his eyes for these heinous deeds. Anitgone later accompanies him into exile.

As the drama begins both of her brothers have died in battle and her uncle, King Creon, has decided to give Eteocles a hero's funeral while condemning Polynices to be left unburied as carrion for scavengers. King Creon decrees that anyone attempting to bury Polynices will be executed.

Knowing she'll pay the ultimate price, Antigone chooses to bury her brother. After she is brought as a prisoner before Creon, he tries to persuade her to collaborate in covering up her crime, and Antigone refuses. She also turns away from Creon's son Haemon, who planned to marry her, and chooses martyrdom out of respect for all human life.

Visitors to Dignity's theater at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Annapolis will immediately confront Handwerger's artistic vision in an on-stage tableau that creates a powerful opening. Nine actors are assembled much like Greek statues, welcoming us to where civilization began. Dramatically lit by luminaries -- candles set in sand inside paper bags -- the Grecian-costumed actors remain immobile for 15 minutes, seemingly transfixed by the enormity of the drama to follow.

When actor Bryan Barrett, serving as a one-man Greek chorus, begins to tell the story of Haemon's love for Antigone, we are transported back to ancient Thebes, and Haemon begins to dance with Antigone's sister Ismene to bring the story to vivid life.

As Antigone, 16-year-old Hallie Garrison commands the stage before the play begins as she sits motionless, seeming to gaze into her future. Garrison captures Antigone's courage, willfulness and idealism, her joy "to be the first out of bed" to greet the world, her girlish vulnerability, her love for Haemon, and her devotion to her nurse and to her sister. Garrison's Antigone shines with a passionate idealism that is at the core of her steely determination to bury her brother.

In sharp contrast and equally strong is Frank B. Moorman as Creon, a complex character who tries to save Thebes by maintaining an unyielding dedication to the status quo despite its political corruptness. Moorman conveys Creon's middle-aged rationality as he argues against Antigone's youthful admiration of her brothers and his mounting frustration that eventually turns to anger as he confronts the inevitability of Antigone's fate -- and his son's.

As Ismene, Becki Placella portrays a kind of everywoman content to be beautiful and accept a secondary role in a male world. Placella's Ismene conveys her ambivalence distilled from fear at supporting her sister in the ritualistic burial of their brother, and her preference for accepting compromise.

Jamie Hanna as Haemon conveys his devotion to Antigone, acceding to her request to remain silent on hearing her news that they can never marry. Hanna is powerful and vulnerable as he denounces his father. A fight choreographer, Hanna masterfully portrays Haemon's anger at Creon.

Antigone performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, 333 Dubois Road. Tickets may be ordered online at www.dignityplayers.org or by calling 410-266-8044, ext. 127.