Lysistrata ... isn't that the comedy with the men stuck in an endless war, so the women go on a sex strike, and the men can't fight anymore because (as becomes enormously evident when they reappear onstage) particular bodily appendages of theirs have become enflamed with desire? Yeah, some jokes — even when they're 2,400 years old — never grow old. The Civic's production in 2004 had the men flouncing around with polystyrene swimming pool "noodles" protruding upwards from their groins. (Wires provided added, um, stiffness.) And when you're attached to a stiff noodle, it's difficult to maintain even a modicum of dignity. (That Aristophanes, such a joker.) Fr. Kevin Connell, S.J. — the Jesuit priest who is principal at Gonzaga Prep and who will be directing the Gonzaga University production of Lysistrata at the Magnuson Theater in College Hall, March 25-28 — has advised us that the G.U. male actors won't have any noodles, "though we've found an interesting and, I think, unique way" to represent the men's, er, predicament. Don't bring the kids, but do bring your sense of humor.Link (here)
This is from the Gonzaga University website.
2 comments:
Of course non only was Aristophanes a pagan, but so were Plato, Socrates, and Aristoteles (all of whose works I studied under Jim Schall SJ.)
The show closed long ago, but I worked on it. Here's what we did. The production's solution to the anatomical issue to use it as a way to satirize the militarism which the men in play initially worship. With the Athenians dressed in modern US desert camo attire and the Spartans sporting vaguely Central Asian dress and accents, the sexual frustration of the men was represented by a wide variety of weapons jutting from their groins. The men sported spears and maces, machine guns and Winchesters, and even a battery-powered light sabre in the second half of the play. (They also danced a passable version of N-Sync's "Bye, Bye, Bye" in the first half.) This limited the potentially anatomical offense given and helped to emphasize Aristophanes' connection between militarism and masculinity in this play.
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