Nicholas Barnard TH367: Lysistrata Concept Paper 12/2/02
War is something that every society has had to work through, often before it comes into existence. While at times wars are fought with near-unanimous support, often they are met with anti-war protests at home. These protests often provide stories as interesting, if not more interesting than the wars themselves.
Aristophanes play Lysistrata is a semi-plausible comedy with a very strong anti-war theme. Aristophanes has very deliberately made the argument against a continuing long-term war and even has provided a blue-print on how a group of women could stop a war peacefully. Within Lysistrata Aristophanes has also made a very strong feministic argument, that women can achieve great things and alter the course of the world with simple acts. He has also illustrated that a committed group of people can achieve anything. In condensing this information down, Lysistrata is an anti-establishment play that riles against the norms, in multiple ways.
In considering my artistic view for this production of Lysistrata, I am fully cognizant that Aristophanes's ideas and point of view must not be refuted with his own work, but must instead be specified and concreted with my own artistic choices and desires. In this production of Lysistrata, I want it to speak to a modern audience about peace in relation to the Middle East, and specifically in regards to the violence happening between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. I also want to show a world within an entertainment venue that does not consider attractive women as a pretty image to be formed, airbrushed, and utilized to sell any product, including this production itself.
In producing this play for a modern audience, we must remain at all points true to the artistic ideals placed forth by both Aristophanes and myself. The first impulse in producing Lysistrata is to place this blatant sex comedy in a grand neo-Greek setting. Instead, this play should be produced with a minimalist approach, only providing broad strokes of buildings, and simple non-period (including present day and historical Greek) costumes. The dialogue of the play should be approached without any special considerations, except for producing the characters in their truest non-biased sense. There should be a certain balance approached when looking at the minimalist idea, minimalist should not mean, place as little as possible on the stage and the actors, but everything that's placed on the stage should be with deliberate and clear purpose, and should be minimally attention drawing.
This presentation method should be chosen above all others, and any other more elaborate designs would drive the audience to place the play in a more specific time and place and drive the relevancy from something current day into “oh that happened in the past.” By not providing a time location as the setting of the play the audience is forced to process the play as it stands, and hopefully apply it to their experiences.
Lysistrata must remain at first glance an outrageous sex comedy, but the comedic elements should not overshadow the larger ideas that have been identified as what should be communicated about this play. In following the guidelines briefly presented here should provide for an entertaining and provocative production of Lysistrata.