Michael Ewans

A PDF file of this essay is available for download.

Here is the text of the publicity flyer for the professional production of Lysistrata which I directed in the Newcastle Theatre Company Wiles Auditorium in Lambton, New South Wales; it played from May 25^th to 28^th 2022:

Stray Dogs Theatre Company presents 

ARISTOPHANES: LYSISTRATA

The ultimate comedy of sex!

Fed up with their men who have been fighting almost continuously in the war between Athens and Sparta for twenty years, Lysistrata organizes a sex strike of the women. No peace? No sex! 

In hilarious scenes rich with bawdy language and action, Aristophanes explores the power struggle that results from the sex strike – and the suffering on both sides as sexual frustration bites! 

First performed in 411 BCE, this classic play is Aristophanes’ most popular comedy. Its message of women’s desire for peace – and their conflict with men – still resonates today.

This production features Claudia Bedford in the title role, following her portrayal of Medea in Stray Dogs’ production in 2021. It is translated and directed by Michael Ewans.

The translation was my own accurate and actable version, first published in 2010 [1]; unlike almost all previous translations it does not shirk the absolutely explicit sexual language of the original. This article will first explore selected aspects of how we staged the play, then touch on wider issues which my dramaturg, Prof. Marguerite Johnson, will pursue fully in an article in progress, In Bed with Aristophanes: Lysistrata and Female Sexuality.

Staging

Lysistrata was performed in a smallish proscenium arch theatre (seating capacity 144), with a performance space 7m wide and 5m deep, back to the façade of the entrance to the Acropolis, in front of which the action of the play takes place. There was a total cast of twenty, with some small parts doubled. The chorus (much reduced from Aristophanes’ twenty-four) comprised three Older Men and three Older Women. Modern dress was used, and masks were not. In consequence, in this intimate space, the facial expressions of every member of the cast onstage at any given moment were crucial to the success of the production; there are several passages where not only the chorus but also some individual cast members with relatively small speaking parts are present and watching the action; they devised postures, gestures and facial expressions which conveyed their reactions. Casting and costuming were very important, and the eight women were dressed in a way that accentuated their physical characteristics. Their costumes were the launching-pad for the characterization of their reactions to the dialogue throughout Scene 1.

 

In this picture you will also see the first of the five artificial phalluses sported by all the men who enter between this scene and the reconciliation and peacemaking near the end of the play. We used white tubes sourced from a hospital by the costume designer. As we developed this and the subsequent scenes in rehearsal, I came to realize the brilliance of Aristophanes’ sense of comic timing; he re-energized his play by introducing these erect phalluses two thirds of the way through the comedy, as visible reminders of the desperation to which Lysistrata’s sex strike has by then reduced the younger men. And their removal for the Finale is equally a visible reminder, that pent-up passion has been sated and men and women can now unite as couples in the dance.

The most important example of staging the play effectively through silent action comes in the scene of reconciliation at 1105ff. The personified figure of Reconciliation was played in the original either by a naked slave girl or by a male actor in a nude bodysuit with false breasts and a painted-on pubic patch [4]. Complete female nudity is for many reasons not desirable in a modern production of this scene. So, in my 2005 student production she was played by a bronzed young woman in a golden tiara, a golden bikini, and golden sandals, who adopted a static position back centre after guiding the ambassadors to their places. There was no problem with the costume, but there were major problems with the blocking, as the Ambassadors, two on each side of Lysistrata and Reconciliation, need to be able to see and interact with both females. We took a fresh approach in 2022, drawing on the extensive dance experience, bodily flexibility, and choreographic ability of Xanthie Pagac, who played Reconciliation.

Xanthie Pagac dancing as Reconciliation. Note how the pose captured in this photograph resembles that of dancing maenads on some Greek vases!

 

With her golden dress split at the front all the way up her legs, Xanthie performed fluid movements as she led the Spartan and Athenian ambassadors near to Lysistrata, and then complemented Lysistrata’s own movements with a seductive dance which was intended to arouse the ambassadors – to the point where eventually Reconciliation must exit hastily under the threat of sexual assault from front and rear. All of this was done with grace and naturalness and contributed greatly to the success of this climactic scene, which could otherwise have been received as at best tacky, at worst downright distasteful.

The treatment of the chorus has often been a major problem in modern stagings of Greek tragedy and comedy. I have seen some productions where their lyric verses were actually set to music by a composer and then sung; the words were often heard with difficulty, and the momentum of the play was virtually halted. At the opposite extreme, in David Rudkin’s 1978 adaptation of Hippolytus the chorus was represented by one young woman, who spoke all the choral text [5]. I adopt a middle position; for Lysistrata I commissioned a composer to write accompanying music for all the passages that were sung in the original, over which individual members of the chorus spoke their lines. The style was that of modern Greek bouzouki music, except for the First Spartan Ambassador’s two songs in the Finale, which opened up an altogether different dimension. This enabled audiences to respond to the disposition of music in the original play, especially in the long Third Chorus, which comprises an ingenious alternation between short stanzas which were sung in the original and spoken sections. These changes of mode were faithfully echoed in our performance. 

Wider considerations

The founders of Stray Dogs Theatre Company at first expressed disquiet about my desire to stage Lysistrata in the current state of gender politics and recommended that I consider Frogs instead. I think however that the contest between the poets in the last scene of Frogs is almost unstageable today, because some of the most important parodies rely greatly on metrical subtleties in the original Greek lyrics, which cannot be reproduced in translation. Nor would we have had enough room backstage for Charon’s boat! And I wanted to direct Lysistrata, because it is Aristophanes’ most popular play [6], and contains messages about the desire for peace and the right of women to be heard which are, in the words of one of our audience members, ‘highly relevant today’.

But we need to be cautious. The sub-scene where the Athenian Ambassadors gratuitously abuse slaves who get in their way (1215ff.) was cut from all three of my productions [7] (as indeed from all the modern productions that I have seen either live or on YouTube); but the two references to marital rape are integral to Scene 1 and could cause problems. Accordingly, we added a warning, both in the program and exhibited in front of the box office: 

WARNING: EXPLICIT SEXUAL LANGUAGE

TRIGGER WARNING: This play contains references to potential domestic violence which could trigger audience members who have themselves suffered domestic violence or rape. 

We also made a statement in the program note, after introducing the play and the circumstances of its first performance:

We do not endorse or believe that women should suffer any form of abuse in a work or relationship setting.

What we want to show and focus on is the women’s depth of resolve, how passionately they wanted peace, and what can be accomplished when collectively women band together for their own good and to the benefit of the community around them – they can unite a country, broker peace and effectively rule the world! This is a play about finding creative responses to difficult if not impossible situations – not by yourself but together. And despite its serious message, it is a comedy!

There has been an increasing focus in Australia on attempts to eradicate domestic violence and sexual harassment since the #MeToo movement began; but this did not affect the reception of our Lysistrata in Newcastle. Packed houses laughed loud and long throughout the play and applauded warmly at curtain call; and the participants in the Q&A session after the Saturday matinee were unequivocally supportive. One male chorus member did express some anxiety about the two references to domestic violence, and this opened up a safe environment for an all-cast discussion during an early rehearsal. A talented cast of twenty, comprising people of both sexes and all ages, committed themselves wholeheartedly to presenting the show. Any thought that Lysistrata might be inappropriate in 2022 was simply negated by the play’s combination of hilarious comic scenes with serious reflection on the need to make peace rather than wage war (highly topical since Russia’s infamous invasion of Ukraine). And its feminist message of a woman’s right to be heard carried loud and clear. It is true that Aristophanes indulges in jokes about women’s alleged obsessions with drinking and sex; for example Lysistrata exclaims: ‘then we’re all nymphomaniacs’ when the other women refuse to join her in a sex strike (137), and the Bureaucrat claims that women are ‘very courageous, if they’ve had enough to drink’ (466-7); but there is a great deal of humour at the expense of randy males as well. And Aristophanes expresses a deep sympathy with and understanding of the plight of women affected by male warfare – especially in the following passage, which needs to be emotionally moving for the audience:

BUREAUCRAT        Isn’t it terrible for women to speak of beating fleece 

and spinning wool? 

            You do nothing to help with the war.

LYSISTRATA                                                            You bastard, we do

            more than double what you do. First we give birth

            and send our sons as soldiers off –

BUREAUCRAT                                            Don’t say it; no past sufferings.     590

LYSISTRATA     Then, when we should be having pleasure 

and enjoying being young,

            we sleep alone because of war. Never mind us wives,

            think of unmarried girls who’re growing old in bed alone.

BUREAUCRAT        Don’t men get old as well?

LYSISTRATA                                                            Yes, but it’s not the same.

            When one gets back from service, even with grey hair,

            he’ll soon get a young girl to marry him;

            a woman’s time is short, and if she’s lost her chance,

            nobody wants to marry her; she just sits at home and hopes.

 

We were all exhilarated by the experience of rehearsing and presenting this production, and by its very positive audience reception [8].

 

A videorecording of the dress rehearsal is available to view on YouTube:

 

Bibliography

Ewans, M. (2010) (ed. and tr.) Aristophanes: Lysistrata, The Women’s Festival and Frogs. Norman: Oklahoma University Press.

Holzinger, K. (1928) ‘Erklärungen umstrittener Stellen des Aristophanes’. SB Wien 208.5.37ff.

Revermann, M. (2006) Comic Business: Theatricality, Dramatic Technique and Performance Contexts of Aristophanes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rudkin, D. (1980) Euripides: Hippolytus; a Version. London: Heinemann.

Vaio, J. (1973) ‘The manipulation of Theme and Plot in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata’. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 14. 369-80.

Zweig, B. (1992) ‘The Representation of Nude Female Characters in Aristophanes’ Plays’, in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (ed. A. Richlin). New York: Oxford University Press.