Lysistrata
Aubrey Beardsley book illustration
Written by	Aristophanes
Chorus	Women Old men
Characters	Lysistrata Cleonice Myrrhine Lampito Magistrate Cinesias Slave Spartan herald Envoys Athenians
Setting	Before the Propylaea which is the gateway to the Acropolis
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Lysistrata (Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη Lysistratê, Doric Greek: Λυσιστράτα Lysistrata), loosely translated to "she who disbands armies", is a Greek comedy, written in 411 BC by Aristophanes. Aristophanes (Ἀριστοφάνης ˌærɪˈstɒfəniːz in English ca The city of Sparta ( Doric Σπάρτα Attic Σπάρτη Athens (ˈæθənz Αθήνα Athina,) the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery as one of the world's Attic Greek is the Prestige dialect of Ancient Greece that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. For the modern Doric dialect of Scotland see Doric dialect (Scotland Doric was a dialect of ancient Greek. Comedy was one of two principal dramatic forms in ancient Greece the other being Tragedy. Events By place Greece The Democracy of Athens is overthrown by the oligarchic extremists Antiphon, Aristophanes (Ἀριστοφάνης ˌærɪˈstɒfəniːz in English ca

Historical play

Led by the title character, Lysistrata, the story's female characters barricade the public funds building and withhold sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace. Peace, in the modern usage is a concept defined by the ideal state of relationship as absence of hostility at the international level that of a War. In doing so, Lysistrata engages the support of women from Sparta, Boeotia, and Corinth. The city of Sparta ( Doric Σπάρτα Attic Σπάρτη Boeotia, Beotia, or Bœotia ( Greek: Βοιωτία - English biːˈoʊʃiə formerly Cadmeis was a region of Ancient Greece, north of the Corinth, or Korinth ( Greek Κόρινθος ( is a city in Greece. All of the other women are first against Lysistrata's suggestion to withhold sex. Finally, they agree to swearing an oath of allegiance by drinking wine from a phallic shaped flask, as the traditional implement (an upturned shield) would have been been a symbol of actions opposed to the aims of the women. This action is ironic and therefore comical, because Greek men believed women had no self-restraint, a lack displayed in their alleged fondness for wine as well as for sex.

The play was originally performed at either the Dionysia or a smaller Festival of Dionysus, called the Lenaia festival. The Dionysia was a large religious festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central event of which was the performance of tragedies In Classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos (in Greek, Διόνυσος or Διώνυσος; associated with Roman The Lenaia was an annual festival with a Dramatic competition but one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in Ancient Greece. A different comedy by Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, was also produced that year, and it is not clear which play was produced at which festival. Thesmophoriazusae (Θεσμοφοριάζουσες / Thesmophoriazouses; meaning "Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria Festival" also called

Lysistrata is the first completely positive female leader portrayed in drama (who was a mortal and not a goddess). While Lysistrata has great difficulty holding the women together, she never falters in her role as a General and through the play is a model of feminine rationality. Professor Elizabeth Scharffenberger (Columbia Classics) points out Lysistrata, "releaser of war," sounds remarkably similar to an important priestess in Athens at that time whose name, Lysimache, meant "releaser of the battle. " The connection would have encouraged the association of Lysistrata with sacred Athena - a model of male-like rationality. Athena was after all born from the head of Zeus.

The play addresses the contributions women could make to society and to policy making and readers are left to decide for themselves if the play is a proto-feminist dialogue, or not. The play as a work of art can be staged effectively as a misogynist lampooning of women (as it was in Greece in the 1960s) or as a feminist argument for the need for more female participation in civic life. The play would have been highly comic to Aristophanes' contemporaries, because female power played out as a real possibility, would have been ludicrous. The "women" would have been played by men, and their inability to deal with the lack of sex and their addiction to alcohol fed into the dark, funny, stereotypes about women. But Aristophanes clearly has a feeling for the hardships that women faced and wrote too much compelling dialogue for the female characters who dominate the story for the play to not be recognized as a pro-female work. A central metaphor of the play is weaving. The idea that woman are better at going hither and thither and pulling together the strands of society positions women as essential to "weaving the fabric of a nation. " The idea of a domestic skill being core to uniting a war-torn nation is ludicrous . . . or is it? Weaving was at the center of Athenian life. The central mystery of the Great Panathenaea Festival and the mystery suggested in the central frieze on the South Pediment of the Parthenon (which involves the handing over of a piece of fabric, probably a Peplos) supports the idea that weaving was at the center Athenian culture.

Lysistrata touches upon the poignancy of young women left with no eligible young men to marry because of deaths in the wars: "Nay, but it isn't the same with a man/Grey though he be when he comes from the battlefield/still if he wishes to marry he can/Brief is the spring and the flower of our womanhood/once let slip, and it comes not again/Sit as we may with our spells and our auguries/never a husband shall marry us then. "

As with all Greek comedies, the actors portraying male characters wore phalluses, but since audiences of the day were accustomed to this convention, there would be little shock-humor in seeing a comic phallus. The term ancient Greece refers to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca The word phallus can refer to an erect Penis, or to an object shaped like a penis Aristophanes' innovation seems to be in making the usually floppy huge comic phalluses stiff and erect. The Athenians had a penchant for sexual jokes and modern productions such as the sexy staging done for PBS in 2007, tend to emphasize the erotic and play down the more explicit references to genitals. The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) is a Non-profit Public broadcasting Television service with 354 member TV stations in the According to Jeffrey Henderson, laws against profanity in the United States prevented honest translations before 1960. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Henderson's recent translation has shocked many scholars and theater goers who thought they knew the play.

Modern adaptations & performances

The play's anti-war message was originally highly topical and referred specifically to the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between Athens and Sparta which was in its twentieth year at the time the play was first performed. Modern adaptations have crafted Aristophanes' work into a more timeless anti-war message. It is important to note that the play does distinguish between feuding among Greeks and war with barbarians. A feud (ˈfjuːd (referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud or vendetta) is a long-running argument or fight between parties&mdashoften through Guilt "Barbarian" is a pejorative term for an uncivilized person either in a general reference to a member of a nation or Ethnos perceived See Lysistrata's speech, loosely translated from the Greek as:

"That ye, all of one blood, all brethren sprinkling / The selfsame altars from the selfsame laver / At Pylae, Pytho, and Olympia, ay / And many others which 'twere long to name / That ye, Hellenes—with barbarian foes / Armed, looking on—fight and destroy Hellenes!"^[1]

In 1961, the play served as the basis for the musical The Happiest Girl in the World. Musical theatre is a form of Theatre combining Music, Songs spoken Dialogue and Dance. The Happiest Girl in the World is a musical with a book by Fred Saidy and Henry Mayers lyrics by E The play was revived in the National Theatre's 1992-93 season, transferring successfully from the South Bank to Wyndham's Theatre. The Royal National Theatre, located on the South Bank in the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The South Bank is the area in London on the southern bank of the River Thames near Waterloo station that houses a number of important Wyndham's Theatre is a West End theatre, one of two opened by the actor/manager Charles Wyndham (cp Criterion Theatre)

Feminist director Mai Zetterling made a radical 1968 film Flickorna (released in English as The Girls),^[2] starring three reigning Swedish film beauties of the time, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom, who are depicted playing roles in Lysistrata. Mai Elisabeth Zetterling ( maɪ seteɭɪŋ May 24, 1925 - March 17, 1994) was a Swedish Actress and Film director. Birgitta "Bibi" Andersson (born 11 November 1935) is a Swedish actress. Harriet Andersson (born 14 January 1932 in Stockholm) is a Swedish actress best known for being one of Ingmar Bergman 's regular Gunnel Lindblom ( 18 December, 1931 &ndash) is a Swedish film actress and director

Ludo Mich adapted the play for a 1976 film in which all the actors and actresses were naked throughout. ^[3]

A 2007 staging of Lysistrata

An updated version of the play, which was made into a Mozart-like opera in the 1960s, was published in 1979. The opera was to be performed at Detroit's Wayne State University in 1968, but was canceled when the tenor was drafted into the army 4 days before the performance. Wayne State University is located in Detroit, Michigan, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center. The opera director got cold feet about its anti-Vietnam war protest libretto, and used the tenor's draft notice as an excuse to perform the opera in a small room with a new unrehearsed tenor, but no room for a normal-sized audience. The composer regarded that action as unacceptable censorship and then withdrew the opera. ^[4]

In reaction to the Iraq disarmament crisis, this play became the focus of a peace protest initiative The Lysistrata Project in which readings of the play were held on world-wide on March 3, 2003. The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003 when U The Lysistrata Project was a peace protest initiative in which thousands of readings of Aristophanes's play Lysistrata were held on March 3 Events 1284 - Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England 1575 - Indian Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ^[5]

In 2004, a 100 person version of show called Lysistrata 100 was performed in Brooklyn, New York. ^[6] The new adaptation was written by Edward Einhorn and performed in a former warehouse which had been converted to a pub. The play was set at the Dionysia, much like the original may have been. The Dionysia was a large religious festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central event of which was the performance of tragedies

Another operatic version of the play was created by composer Mark Adamo. Mark Adamo (born 1962 is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Adamo's opera Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in March 2005. Lysistrata or The Nude Goddess is an Opera in two acts the second of composer Mark Adamo. Houston Grand Opera (HGO was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and Houston cultural leaders Mrs

From the 2005 staging of Lysistrata produced in Central Park.

In summer 2005, an adaptation set in present-day New York City written by Jason Tyne premiered in Central Park. Central Park is a large public Urban park in New York City, with about twenty-five million visitors annually ^[7] Lucy and her fellow New Yorkers Cleo and Cookie called all of the wives, girlfriends, and lovers of the men in control of the most powerful countries in the world to inflict their sex boycott on them.

A present-day Lysistrata played out in the town of Pereira, Colombia, in September 2006 when a group of gangsters' wives and girlfriends declared a sex strike to force their partners to participate in a disarmament program. The city of Pereira is the capital city of the Colombian department of Risaralda. Colombia (kəˈlʌmbɪə officially the Republic of Colombia () is a country in northwestern South America. Gangsters redirects here For the computer game see Gangsters (video game. A sex strike is a strike, a method of Non-violent resistance in which one or multiple persons refrain from sex with their partner(s to achieve certain ^[8]

In 2007, the play was staged for PBS and directed by James Thomas as part of a series on "Female Power & Democracy" that explored how female participation in civic life is moving from comedy to reality.

In the M*A*S*H episode, "Edwina" a variation on the main theme of Lysistrata was presented when all the nurses withheld sex from their partners until one of the men would date a clumsy nurse on staff. M*A*S*H was a Medical drama / Black comedy produced by 20th Television Fox for CBS. "Edwina" was episode thirteen of the first season of the TV series M*A*S*H.

In the Little Mosque on the Prairie episode, "The Barrier" Sarah uses this theme to convince her husband Yasir to remove the barrier in the Mosque. Little Mosque on the Prairie is a Canadian Sitcom on CBC Television, created by Zarqa Nawaz. The following is a list of episodes for the Canadian sitcom, Little Mosque on the Prairie. Later in the episode, the play is mentioned by name in reference to this strategy in a conversation between Sarah and Mayor Popowicz.

Translations

References

External links

• Excerpt from the script of Lysistrata as adapted by Edward Einhorn.
• Essay on gender and power in Lysistrata.
• Excerpts from Lysistrata with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Aubrey Vincent Beardsley ( August 21, 1872 &ndash March 16, 1898) was an influential English
• Lysistrata & the War: A Comic Opera in Mozartian Style" - updated from the ancient Greek play (ISBN 0-912424-07-9).
• Lysistrata's War - an original rock opera.
• Lysistrata: a musical sex-comedy - Chris Tilley's musical version.