Title

Lysistrata

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Description

Synopsis

Act I:

Scene i: (A street in Athens)
Lysistrata holds a secret meeting with representatives from all the Greek city-states to discuss her plan ,to end the Peloponnesian Wars.

Scene ii: (Outside the Acropolis)
After the old women have successfully occupied the acropolis and barred access to the treasury, a militia of old men attempt to reclaim their city. The Commissioner tries to overcome Lysistrata's women so that he may withdrawal funds for the war effort.

Act II

Scene i: (Inside the Citadel)
Lysistrata must maintain her women's morale during their battle of the sexes, while the Athenian soldier Cinesias returns home from the war seeking his wife Myrrhina.

Scene ii: (A Street)
As the Commissioner awaits reinforcements to confront the women, he encounters a Spartan messenger.

Scene iii: (Outside the Citadel)
In her final attempt to secure peace between the Athenians and Spartans, Lysistrata hosts a peace accord between the armies ... using her own feminine style of diplomacy.

Publication Date

Winter 1997

Language

English

City

Philadelphia

Keywords

The Masque

Disciplines

Theatre and Performance Studies

Comments

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

Politics and politicians; free trade; fiscal reform; votes for minorities; war and Peace; educational theories; complaining tax payers; social etiquette; and sex.

These are the problems and topics for discussion at diners, saloons, beauty parlors, churches, and universities. These are the problems of the average citizen in the 20th, and soon to be 21st Century in which we live.

In 411 BC, Aristophanes wrote of these topics, and it is remarkable that the subject matters have not changed, nor have the solutions brought about cohesion, integration and understanding. Moreover, the one elusive comfort, peace on earth, all men working towards the common goal, for mankind, is still not reached.

In Lysistrata, one of his eleven plays that has been discovered, Aristophanes places the answer to the troubles of Greece by using the simple basic instinct that is inherent in us all. He was perspicacious as he has it proposed by the women. This comic approach demonstrated a journalist beyond his time, who possessed courage, integrity and insightful intelligence. He satirized through sex as many current playwrights and screenwriters do today for stage, screen, and television. An activist not unlike Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin, who wanted to see his beloved country rescued from division and bloodshed. A conservative patriot, having seen his beloved city Athens fall, at age 40, saw what he supposed to be the downfall of civilization, and wanted to bring it his world's attention to it. Unbeknownst to him, through his comedy and satire, he brought the topics of his day to live throughout centuries to beyond his day.

My current adaptation of Lysistrata serves two purposes. One, to bring the story and its purpose as intended by the author to a more contemporary arena. And two, to remind us that although a baptized "subject of taboo", sex has proven itself from 411 BC to 1998, and I am sure into the next Millennium, to be a topic of timeless entertainment and, dare I suggest it, a weapon for peace.

Thank you for sharing this production with The Masque.

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Lysistrata

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