Imagine you’re at the symphony, watching and listening to a striking new orchestration of a venerated concerto; the soloist is topnotch, the ensemble brilliant, the clear result of insightful and sure-handed conducting. Suddenly, the conductor starts twirling his baton, bouncing it off the floor, tossing it high in the air and catching it behind his back. While you’re paying attention to that, and asking yourself questions, whole passages go by unnoticed.

Ivo van Hove’s staging of Sophokles’ Antigone with Juliette Binoche in the title role, is something like that.

Antigone is a tale of civil disobedience with dire consequences. Antigone wants to bury her brother who came out on the losing side of a war against Thebes. Kreon, ruler of Thebes, has decreed that on pain of death the brother’s corpse should rot in public to show what happens to traitors. Sophokles’ tale of private conscience versus public obligation, of man’s laws in conflict with the gods’ laws, is ever relevant. (While not exactly a life-and-death struggle, think about the Kentucky bureaucrat defying the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.)

Anne Carson’s muscular translation kicks things up a notch. A brief example: Antigone, declaring that public sentiment is with her, tells Kreon that people are afraid to protest because “You’ve nailed their tongues to the floor.” My college textbook “Antigone” from the Johnson administration (Lyndon, not Andrew) translates the line as “You have them cowed.”

In early scenes, without raising her voice, Binoche conveys Antigone’s resolve and her years of frustration. As Kreon, Patrick O’Kane also begins quietly, with the soft, sinister sibilants of a Bond villain: he’s used to being obeyed, no need to shout. Both characters will have occasion to crank up the volume. For Antigone, the first time occurs not in arguing with Kreon but when her sister, Ismene (Kristy Bushell), although innocent, tries to take the rap for burying their brother.

That is one of van Hove’s better directorial choices and his staging abounds with them. He has Antigone’s fiancé, Haimon (Samuel Edward-Cook), know about her defiance and keep it secret in a silent scene where he catches her in the act and embraces her.

Van Hove veers off the highway, though, with an apparent infatuation for sensory overload. To the original text, the new translation, the acting–sufficiently absorbing and powerful—have been added an ominous underscore and a near-constant series of video projections that distract rather than complement.

Why are we seeing video of random people trudging in super slo-mo along snow-covered city streets? Who are they? Where are they? What do they have to do with the play? Oh yes, the play. Didn’t I just miss a couple pages of dialogue while I was looking at the screen?

Sure, the young people like their multi-tasking, especially if it involves technology, but at what cost?