Lysistrata
Mar. 4th, 2003 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast night I went to a staged reading of Lysistrata (Aristophanes), one of the thousand-plus that happened yesterday around the world as part of the Lysistrata Project.
There were quite a few readings locally; I went to one in Central Square, at the Y. I hadn't been inside before; the building seems a bit of a mish-mash of old and new put together. The hall we were in had a beautifully curving balcony above the main audience space, which was used: there were about 150 people there, far more than the organizers had expected. The stage was odd, thought it took me a moment to figure out why: each wing and the back of the stage had doorways to allow actors on and off stage. No flexibility there. Of course, for this reading, that hardly mattered.
When I arrived, I was given a program and a stapled packet of papers, which turned out to be the men's chorus sections. Some of the audience became the women's chorus, some the men's; not based on actual gender, obviously. Which made sense, since the reading was all women. The text was definitely modernized - I am pretty sure the original text doesn't include "military-industrial complex" or "12-inch dildoes" (though I'd think it more likely the latter than the former). Having not reread the play in years, I'm not sure just how many liberties were taken with the text...
One of the actors looked familiar, and I finally remembered why: she was in last month's WWD, one of the comedy pair who set Bubblebabble up. She was had the most roles, and played them all excellently.
The production started with the ten women sitting on stage, each with a musical stand in front of her to hold her script. Over the course of the production, people changed their costumes some, and acted some scenes more than others. The Spartan woman wore a huge bra over her shirt, and spoke with a stereotypical Russian accent, while a forlorn husband in desperate need of his wife's affections wore over her pants some briefs with a long blue balloon duct-taped to it (them?). Whenever there were chorus sections, not only did the audience join in, but the actors held up cartoons of political figures, to drive the point home: W, Bush Sr, Mitt, Hilary Clinton, a variety of women I didn't recognize, and (my favorite) Marge Simpson.
The fight scene was wonderful. They played that slow-motion music from Chariots of Fire and all the actors were in a line at the front, fighting in slow motion while facing the audience, which was hysterically funny.
I thought the plot just a bit too improbable. Not necessarily the women banding together, but the machinations after that, the bravado of the men. Although that could just mean I'm overestimating men... Still, it really is a rather perfect play to choose for this theater of protest.
c
There were quite a few readings locally; I went to one in Central Square, at the Y. I hadn't been inside before; the building seems a bit of a mish-mash of old and new put together. The hall we were in had a beautifully curving balcony above the main audience space, which was used: there were about 150 people there, far more than the organizers had expected. The stage was odd, thought it took me a moment to figure out why: each wing and the back of the stage had doorways to allow actors on and off stage. No flexibility there. Of course, for this reading, that hardly mattered.
When I arrived, I was given a program and a stapled packet of papers, which turned out to be the men's chorus sections. Some of the audience became the women's chorus, some the men's; not based on actual gender, obviously. Which made sense, since the reading was all women. The text was definitely modernized - I am pretty sure the original text doesn't include "military-industrial complex" or "12-inch dildoes" (though I'd think it more likely the latter than the former). Having not reread the play in years, I'm not sure just how many liberties were taken with the text...
One of the actors looked familiar, and I finally remembered why: she was in last month's WWD, one of the comedy pair who set Bubblebabble up. She was had the most roles, and played them all excellently.
The production started with the ten women sitting on stage, each with a musical stand in front of her to hold her script. Over the course of the production, people changed their costumes some, and acted some scenes more than others. The Spartan woman wore a huge bra over her shirt, and spoke with a stereotypical Russian accent, while a forlorn husband in desperate need of his wife's affections wore over her pants some briefs with a long blue balloon duct-taped to it (them?). Whenever there were chorus sections, not only did the audience join in, but the actors held up cartoons of political figures, to drive the point home: W, Bush Sr, Mitt, Hilary Clinton, a variety of women I didn't recognize, and (my favorite) Marge Simpson.
The fight scene was wonderful. They played that slow-motion music from Chariots of Fire and all the actors were in a line at the front, fighting in slow motion while facing the audience, which was hysterically funny.
I thought the plot just a bit too improbable. Not necessarily the women banding together, but the machinations after that, the bravado of the men. Although that could just mean I'm overestimating men... Still, it really is a rather perfect play to choose for this theater of protest.
c