The Lysistrata Experience

Trustees of Boston University

The Lysistrata ExperienceLysistrata by Kostas TsianosReview by: Howard SteinArion, Third Series, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Winter, 2005), pp. 135-148Published by: Trustees of Boston UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163990 .

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The Lysistrata Experience

HOWARD STEIN

V>/f the extant comedies of Aristophanes, none has been more frequently performed or given readings and staged readings than Lysistrata. Its plan for a peaceful solution to a war that has been raging for twenty years be

tween Athens and Sparta and is increasingly in danger of be

ing a lost cause for the Athenians is a very "happy idea": no

sex for the men until they cease the fighting and return to

their families. The "happy idea" is not very probable but is

by no means impossible. Lysistrata maintains that men will

give up war for sex, and her story dramatizes the validity of

that pronouncement. With the start of the Iraqi War in 2003, the play's relevance and immediacy erupted with Lysistrata

activity in dozens of countries.

The Lysistrata Project, an anti-war effort launched by New York actors Sharon Bowar and Katherine Blume, in

volved readings on 3 March 2003 in fifty-nine countries, in

cluding Iraq, hosting 1,029 readings of the play. Every state

in the United States had at least one reading, a kind of the

atrical event that hadn't been reproduced in this nation since

1936, when "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis was

presented simultaneously in twenty-one cities in productions

by the Federal Theater. More than 300,000 people attended

the readings by The Lysistrata Project, a testament to the

value, the quality, and the human effectiveness of this play, now 2,500 years old.

The first performance by the National Theater of Greece

of its most current staging of the play was early in 2004 in

the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus, a 14,000-seat outdoor ed

ifice with possibly the world's best natural acoustics. Later

ARION I2.3 WINTER 2OO5



136 THE LYSISTRATA EXPERIENCE

this year, 9 September, this production had its Athens pre miere at the Odeon of Herodius Atticus as an official Olym

pic Event. In October, one month later, the same production was brought to New York City and played at the City Cen

ter Theater for six performances only.* That performance at

City Center inspired these pages.

Unlike the spirit of The Lysistrata Project, the production

by The National Theater of Greece made no attempt to help the play project its relevancy or immediacy. The organizers of the event trusted Aristophanes to make those connections

without any additional cues. To trust Aristophanes, the the

ater artists presumably realized that the popularity of this

play depends on much more than the "happy idea." The

consummate dramatic values in the writing provide the di

rector and actors, the designers and the choreographer, the

singers and the composer with such material that the collab

oration results in a spectacular integration of artistic excel

lence. The play's effectiveness is not by chance but instead by the artistry of the dramatic poet.

Its complex and inventive plot which makes for a unity of

action is unlike the structure of any of the other extant

comedies. Action requires conflict rather than debate, a

force in conflict with a resistance over some objective. From

the opening moment of the play-script, we find Lysistrata

standing on stage impatient, frustrated, disappointed, and

angry, her spirit in conflict with the spirit of the women of

Athens, Sparta, and even Boeotia whom she has invited to

solve the problem of war. When the women finally arrive, she confronts the resistance to the force of her plan and only

through her intelligence, her authority, and her missionary zeal does she persuade them to accept her proposition; after

sufficient persuasion, she succeeds in convincing them by

having them take an oath to carry out the mission.

* Lysistrata, directed by Kostas Tsianos. The City Center, New

York, New York; 6-10 October 2004.



Howard Stein 137

The oath-taking is followed by a scene in front of the

Acropolis. The chorus of old men of Athens wander onstage to recapture the Acropolis which has been taken over by the

old women of Athens as part of Lysistrata's plan: the Acrop olis houses the money which is the carrier of war. The old

men meet fierce resistance from the women and finally leave

the area defeated. That departure is followed by a scene be

tween Lysistrata and The Magistrate. Lysistrata advises The

Magistrate, "It's settled; take up our old occupation. Now in

turn you're to hold your tongue, as we did, and listen while

we show the way to recover the nation." And there you have

the objective of the action: to recover the nation. Every scene

in the play contributes to that action, a structural unity that

we do not see in earlier plays by Aristophanes, although The

Birds gives some indication of that development. The chorus in this drama faces the same kind of dramatic

action that Lysistrata herself faces throughout the play. Here

we have a double chorus, one of men, the other of women.

After the old men make their entrance bearing huge logs with which to prepare fires that will root the women out of

the building, they are forced to meet and to confront another

chorus intent on overcoming their ferocity. Force meets re

sistance, the essence of dramatic conflict, and results not in

a difference of opinion but in a difference of accomplish ment. The men want to take charge of the money house, and

the women want to maintain control of it. Only one force

will prevail. The women win, using water, energy, and their

bodies: logic doesn't win the day; deeds do.

In the case of Lysistrata and The Magistrate, however, Ly sistrata in her confrontation now with a male adversary,

wins the day by her intelligence, her wit, her dedication, the

unrelenting force of her singleness of purpose, and finally with her poetic skill. She literally ties The Magistrate in a

strait jacket of knots after he complains, "Skeins and spin

dles, spindles and yarns . . . problems of state are not skeins

of wool!" Lysistrata responds:




Why are you laughing, pea brained

idiot? If you had sense,

you'd be able to solve all state

matters as easily as we handle wool.

She then explains how she handles wool in order to fashion

a garment:

First and foremost, I clean the wool

in boiling water, the way you should have cleaned out

the pigsty of the administration.

She continues with the metaphor until she completes the

poem:

Bring all these strands together now and make a giant ball of yarn from which to weave

the cloak of peace which will cover lovingly our suffering people.

In her verbal debate (or conflict or confrontation) with

The Magistrate, Lysistrata aids the women controlling the

Acropolis by confronting The Magistrate when he asks,

"Tell me, why did you seize the Acropolis and lock all the

doors?" "To take control of the public money," she answers,

"and stop you fighting for it." He is startled: "Why? Do you think we are fighting for money?" To which she replies, "That's exactly what I think. Money brings war and makes

a mess of public life." Lysistrata's objective is to get men like

The Magistrate to put their names to a peace treaty, to sign

up for a cessation of hostilities, both on the part of Athens

and of Sparta. With the drama of that scene of signing, the

action of the play will be completed. The play itself will con

tinue briefly with the appropriate honoring of the gods, but

her objective is clear: "War makes a mess of public life, we



Howard Stein 139

will stop it by women's laws." The women indicate their

method:

Prudence, beauty, virtue, courage,

love for our country.

These are our weapons.

Tough womenfolk, prickly mettles, show them what you're worth.

Beat them up

the dirty old cuckolds.

If our goddess, Aphrodite, and her sweet son, Cupid,

breathes upon our breasts

and between our legs

giving our husbands

lasting hard-ons,

we'll be able to make them

leave the ranks.

With that recognition, the chorus of women again confront

the chorus of men:

Men: If we're men with balls

we must resist.

Let's throw off our tunics

and show them some muscle.

Let's show them who we are:

Let them whiff our manly smell.

The women quickly respond:

Come on girls, quick.

Let's undress too.

The smell of women in the throes

of passion will drive them crazy.

With this second confrontation between the chorus of men

and the chorus of women, the men finally retire. Lysistrata then makes another entrance and announces the first chink



I40 THE LYSISTRATA EXPERIENCE

in the armor of the oath. She speaks for all the women:

We want to get laid!

By this confession, Lysistrata establishes herself as a woman

amongst women exhibiting a startling bit of psychological realism: ambivalence, a divided yearning as she resists the

men in order to end the war, an acknowledgement that even

after the taking of the oath, they all suffer the desire to have

men. It is not just the men being required to give up sex in

order to save the nation; women are equally denied. That

double condition reminds one of the need for a choice be

tween two rights, and that one right must be wasted. On

many occasions of conflict, our lives cannot incorporate two

rights co-existing, and we are forced to choose one over the

other. Hegel claims this conflict of two rights is at the core of

tragedy, and for that reason he establishes Antigone as his

model of excellence in tragedy, for Creon is right in his de

votion to public good and Antigone is right in her devotion

to her brother, and Life requires one of them to lose, and

thus to waste a right. Unlike most of the other women, though, Lysistrata

quickly recovers her mission and embarks on a series of con

frontations with colleagues trying to disengage themselves

from the oath they have sworn to. Aristophanes invents for

the resisters a number of tricks whereby they hope to join their men, and Lysistrata exposes every one of them, prevail

ing upon them to control their yearnings, with a culmination

in the scene in which Myrrhena, Lysistrata's first lieutenant

from Athens, spies her husband coming towards her with an

extended burden between his legs and the weight of frustra

tion and desire practically making a cripple out of him. The

scene which follows, one of the most popular of all the scenes

of the conflict in the play, presents Myrrhena's husband, Ki

nesias, struggling from an unrelenting erection while being teased by his wife with one excuse after another, a scene

which culminates in Myrrhena's victory and her escape from



Howard Stein 141

the situation, the prelude to the entrance of the Spartans and

the movement to the signing of the peace treaty. Myrrhena

disappears, leaving Kinesias screaming:

Kineses: Where shall I put it now?

Commissioner: Pity you. It's so swollen

I'm afraid it will burst.

Kinesias : It can win a gold metal at the Olympics. I can no longer wait.

And off he goes, followed by the visit of a Herald from

Sparta, he with a similar tale of woe.

Herald: I'm a Herald sent from Sparta

to bring you their views

on the what-do-you-call-it, this

reconeill something. (Reconciliation) Athenian: And the rod? Why are you

carrying it?

Herald: I'm carrying no rod.

Athenian: And what's this in front?

Herald: This? A Spartan staff.

Athenian: It's just like ours. One . . . two . . .

They must be twins. Now be frank.

How are things in Sparta? Talk.

Herald: Up and rising. And I mean everyone,

even our allies.

Athenian: And what may have caused

his misfortune?

Herald: It's the old hag, Lampito,

and the other bitches

who banished men

from between their legs.

The Athenian Commissioner orders the Herald to return

with the Spartan envoys, and they do indeed return to

Athens to sign the peace treaty. The play concludes with Ly sistrata meeting the Spartan Council.




Spartans: You have seduced the foremost men

in Greece who have decided to entrust you with the task

of ending their quarrels.

Lysistrata calls for her colleague, Reconciliation:

Lysistrata: Bring here the Laconian envoys

first, and treat them tenderly with female grace and not

boorishly like our husbands

whose caresses leave marks on

our skin.

Lysistrata then moves into a sermonizing stance to offer ad

vice to the Spartans, followed by the swearing to the oath of

Peace:

Lysistrata: You will take an oath of

eternal friendship.

Spartans: Let's take the oath now.

Lysistrata: You want now? No problem.

Do you swear?

Spartans: We do ... we swear ... we swear . . .

Lysistrata: Now let everybody take his wife

and go on home.

Spartans: What are we waiting for?

On the double . . .

It should be quite apparent how theatrical the play is from

the brief description of the action presented in the pages above. Any director would be encouraged to undertake the

staging of such a drama replete with scatological language, erotic and bawdy displays, gender battles, and anarchic be

havior, all for a noble cause. The problem arises when a di

rector has to deal with the chorus, in this case double

chorus, men and women. For example, when the men enter

for the first time, bearing their logs and fire, they are de

scribed by Aristophanes as "dancers." The chorus is ex



Howard Stein 143

pected to provide the drama with constant singing and danc

ing for the entire play, and not just any singing and dancing but sound and movement consonant with the words and

rhythm of the poet Aristophanes. A twentieth-century theatrical incident comes to mind for

its similarity. In the 1930s, Orson Welles (at the age of

twenty-three) was approached by John Houseman to direct

a production of Macbeth to be presented by a Negro com

pany. Welles' first consideration was the problem of the

witches. He took that problem to his wife, who suggested that Orson go to Haiti and bring back some witch doctors.

Welles did indeed go to Haiti, brought back three native

witch doctors, and staged and mounted one of the most suc

cessful productions of Macbeth ever. The problem for the

production was not Macbeth or Lady Macbeth but that

small chorus of witches.

The director of the production by the National Theater of

Greece, Kostas Tsianos, was supported by costume and set

designer, Rena Georgiadou, and also exceptionally supported

by Christos Leonitis' music, and dancing choreographed by Fokad Evaggelinos. That team collaborated (not human co

operation but artistic collaboration!) with Aristophanes to

provide for the audience a stirring, spectacular theater event.

Song and movement were constant reminders of the citizenry for whom the action of the play was developed. The magic of

that aspect of the production even highlighted the individual

performances of the cast: Lydia Koniordou as Lysistrata, Maria Kantife as Lambito (the Spartan), Vasso Iatropolou as

Myrrhena, Mikos Karanthanos as Cinesias, Christos Ninis as

The Herald from Sparta, and Yuannis Stollas as the Singer. The play was never quiet.

Although the chorus played so significant a role, the per formers provided an extraordinary dimension. They not

only brought superior authority to their acting, but their

faces as well as their bodies displayed a complete connection

to what was happening on stage. My good fortune was to

have seen Lydia Koniordou perform Electra and Antigone




with the National Theater's Company; these were excep tional performances of tragic characters. But to see her cap ture the spirit of Lysistrata from my first sight of her, to see

that face on which was written disgust, anxiety, eagerness,

dedication, wit, intelligence, sensibility, and energy was to

see a comic performance by an extraordinary dramatic tal

ent. Her colleague Lambito, a frozen-faced Spartan ally, her

Athenian partner, Cleonice, the messenger from Sparta (The

Herald), and the rest of the cast?all joined by a common

spirit of joy, devotion, and skill?provided a total work of

art. They displayed the ability to create the heartbeat and

rhythm that the director established.

To manage to make the chorus as significant as the individ

ual performers in the drama that has the color, imagination, and appeal of Lysistrata is a major directorial accomplish

ment. In this case, it was not only an accomplishment but also

a victory. The sounds and movement on the stage were mes

merizing and captivating. That condition started with the

opening moment of the performance with a scene added by Tsianos.

As the lights come up, the procession begins, a parade reminiscent of a Mummers Parade, a religious rite costumed

appropriately, with song and dance accompanying the words

created by the director, the Chorus offers its plea to the God

Bacchus:

Come on, move along, kneel before him.

Shut up and be respectful. O my Phallus!

O Phallus! O Phallus, a companion of my revel,

always be sprightly and well,

eager and robust.

Here's the Phallus,

a stubborn guy,

a lecher, a gadabout

and a crook. O Phallus!

O Phallus! O Phallus,



Howard Stein 145

a companion in my revel,

always be sprightly and well,

eager and robust.

Come and drink with us, O Phallus.

Sip our wine

to your heart's content, O Phallus.

Let us glorify Bacchus

who gives me a hard-on

whenever I need it, let the dance go on.

This earth will some day

gobble us up after all.

These words were offered the audience at City Center on su

pertitles, but who would want to read supertitles when the

parade was so enchanting? (The public relations company of

Richard Kornberg, which represents the National Theater

Company, kindly provided me with an e-mail copy of the su

pertitles.) In not one of the translations I checked (including the

Loeb), not Oates and O'Neill, Van Doren's collection, Dud

ley Fitts, Hadas' collection, and Douglass Parker's, was there

any opening moment other than "Lysistrata stands alone in

front of the Propylea." Now, if you are a director, you do in

deed like the idea that the play actually begins with the

drama of the major character up against his or her adver

sary. However, if you are an actress, you would prefer to

make an entrance so that the audience can applaud you and

acknowledge your already significant reputation. In this pro

duction, Lysistrata's first appearance is exactly what the

original script calls for, but only after the Chorus has trans

ported the audience. She is welcomed, but she follows an en

gaging spectacle. Mr. Tsianos, who also did the translation, establishes by

his opening procession the significance of the Chorus as well

as the relationship between the sacred and the profane. He

prepared the audience for a kind of experience with Lysis




trata that most (if not all) American directors cannot, a

farce/comedy which incorporates the sacred and the profane without losing any of the power of the vulgar, the bawdy, or

the ribald. The recognition of the honor necessary to bestow

upon the divine is always present. Lysistrata's story serves

the play rather than owns it.

The choral odes were sung and danced and rhymed and

punctuated by choral primal music with a captivating and

inspiring beat, so that the Women's Chorus, for example, had the entertaining quality which was also appropriate for

the Men's Chorus:

Oh yes, I'll dance with unflagging energy. No toilsome effort will weary my knees.

I'm ready to face anything

with women as courageous as these;

they've got character, charm and guts,

they've got intelligence and heart

that's both patriotic and smart!

Odes like this are frequent in both Choruses and con

tribute to the entertaining quality that such similar choral

work provides in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. This needs

some explanation.

In his "Introduction to the Greek Theatre" (1959), Peter

Arnott saw that "Greek comedy remains unique as an art

form. No other age has been quite able to equal it. The near

est parallel today would be a combination of intimate review

and pantomime. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas, too, have

much in common with Greek comedy, Aristophanes' plots are

echoed in those of The Savoyards." However, it was Edith

Hamilton in The Greek Way (1930), who first recognized the

connection between Gilbert and Aristophanes: "The play

wright most like Aristophanes, whose sense of humor was

most akin to his, lived in an age as unlike his as Shakespeare's was like it. . . yet the mid-Victorian W. S. Gilbert of Pinafore fame saw eye to eye with Aristophanes as no other writer has

done." The relationship between the playwrights was not dif



Howard Stein 147

ficult for me to recognize, but not until I saw this recent pro

duction of Lysistrata did I make the genuine connection be

tween Aristophanes and Gilbert and Sullivan. The satirist

Aristophanes was to my mind more merciless than Gilbert the

satirist, although both were properly offensive and both at

tacked similar targets. Gilbert, it seems to me, concentrated

on the foibles and follies of humankind in a societal context,

while Aristophanes dug deep down for all the aspects of the

human being that reflected his kinship with the beasts. Follies

and foibles are at least one level below civilized behavior; the

primal urges and action of Aristophanes are easily a level be

low that. Not until this production, however, did I recognize the first-rate role that the work of the Chorus plays in both

the comedies of Aristophanes and the operas of Gilbert and

Sullivan. Gilbert's satires have lived because of his collabora

tion with Sullivan. Aristophanes' satires exist on the page, but

come to life with the collaboration of a team of theater artists.

The closing of the play provides an appropriate counter

part to the opening hymn to Bacchus. The nation has been

recovered, the mess of public life has been returned to order, the sacred has reinstated with the profane, and the play ends

with a spiritual high, a hymn to Artemis:

O Artemis, virgin goddess,

huntress of wild beasts,

bless our holy libations and make us

live in peace and brotherhood.

O Artemis, virgin goddess,

huntress of wild beasts, all's for the best.

Spartans, take your wives home

and you, Athenians, take yours.

Women, stand next to your husbands,

and let's dance to honor

the gods who protect us,

always making sure not to repeat

the same mistakes.

Let the gods




honor our dance

with the Graces

hand in hand.

Our dance spreads

and unites the world

with the lyres in a row; O Phoebus, light your fire,

Bacchus, pour us some wine,

and you, Zeus, send us your blessing.

And you, cunning Cupid,

pierce my body with your arrows

and sing with us

'cause we only live once.

Our dance spreads

and unites the world,

let's dance and leap to honor Peace.

Let's get drunk on Bacchus' wine.

The gaiety, the rightness of this spectacle was written not

only in the words of the poet nor only in the songs and

dances of the Chorus, but also in the faces of all the per formers and those of the audience as one looked about. An

experience to be treasured.



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The Lysistrata Experience