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'''Lysistrata''' (Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη ''Lysistratê'', Doric Greek: Λυσιστράτα ''Lysistrata''), loosely translated to "she who disbands armies", is an anti-war Greek comedy, written in 411 BCE by Aristophanes.
Led by the eponymous Lysistrata, the story's female characters barricade the public funds building and withhold sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace. In doing so, Lysistrata engages the support of women from Sparta, Boeotia, and Corinth. All of them, at first aghast at the suggestion of withholding sex, finally agree swearing an oath of allegiance to the cause.
The play was originally performed at either the Dionysia or a smaller Festival of Dionysus, called the Lenaia festival. A different comedy by Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, was also produced that year, and it is not clear which play was produced at which festival.
The play also addresses the contributions women could make to society and to policy making, but cannot because their views are ignored as all such considerations are prerogative men only. See the exchange between Lysistrata and the magistrate who comes to try to browbeat the women into giving up their plans.
Lysistrata touches upon the poignancy of young women left with no eligible young men to marry because of deaths in the wars: "Nay, but it isn't the same with a man/Grey though he be when he comes from the battlefield/still if he wishes to marry he can/Brief is the spring and the flower of our womanhood/once let slip, and it comes not again/Sit as we may with our spells and our auguries/never a husband shall marry us then."
As with all Greek comedies, the actors portraying male characters wore phalluses, but since audiences of the day were accustomed to this convention, there would be no shock-humour as might be experienced by the modern audiences of today.

Contents

Modern uses

Life imitates art

Popular culture

Translations

References

External links

Modern uses

The play focuses on the effects of the mutually destructive bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War, but is now known as a broad anti-war statement, based on the modern Western notion that men of all nations ought to live together in peace. In this regard, it is important to note that the play does distinguish between feuding among Greeks and war with barbarians. See Lysistrata's speech, loosely translated from the Greek as:
:''"That ye, all of one blood, all brethren sprinkling / The selfsame altars from the selfsame laver / At Pylae, Pytho, and Olympia, ay / And many others which 'twere long to name / That ye, Hellenes—with barbarian foes / Armed, looking on—fight and destroy Hellenes!"''
:(Quotation from the translation by Benjamin Bickley Rogers, reproduced in the Britannica Great Books series, Volume 5)
In 1961, the play served as the basis for the musical ''The Happiest Girl in the World''.
The play was produced in the National Theatre's 1992-93 season transferring successfully from the South Bank to Wyndham's Theatre.
Ludo Mich adapted the play for a 1976 film in which all the actors and actresses were naked throughout.^[1]

An updated version of the play, which was made into a Mozart-like opera in the 1960s, was published in 1979. The opera was to be performed at Detroit's Wayne State University in 1968, but was canceled when the tenor was drafted into the army 4 days before the performance. The opera director got cold feet about its anti-Vietnam war protest libretto, and used the tenor's draft notice as an excuse to perform the opera in a small room with a new unrehearsed tenor, but no room for a normal-sized audience. That was unacceptable censorship to the composer who then withdrew the opera.^[2]
In reaction to the Iraq disarmament crisis, this play was the focus of a peace protest initiative The Lysistrata Project in which readings of the play were held on March 3, 2003 internationally.
In 2004, a 100 person version of show called Lysistrata 100 was performed in Brooklyn, New York.^[3] The new adaptation was written by Edward Einhorn and performed in a former warehouse which had been converted to a pub. The play was set at the Dionysia, much like the original may have been.
Another operatic version of the play was created by composer Mark Adamo. Adamo's opera ''Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess'' premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in March 2005.
In the summer 2005, an adaptation set in present-day New York City written by Jason Tyne premiered in Central Park.^[4] Lucy and her fellow New Yorkers Cleo and Cookie called all of the wives, girlfriends, and lovers of the men in control of the most powerful countries in the world to inflict their sex boycott on them. The Greek civil war was replaced by the current war on terror, the magistrate was replaced by George W. Bush, and Kinesias with a fellow named Dick.

Life imitates art

A present-day ''Lysistrata'' played out in the town of Pereira, Colombia, in September 2006 when a group of gangsters' wives and girlfriends declared a sex strike to force their partners to participate in a disarmament program.^[5]

Popular culture

In the ''M
★ A
★ S
★ H'' episode, "Edwina" a variation on the main theme of ''Lysistrata'' was presented when all the nurses withheld sex from their partners until one of the men would date a clumsy nurse on staff.
The play is also the subject of a 1982 song by the band Utopia.
In the ''Little Mosque on the Prairie'' episode, "The Barrier" Sarah uses this theme to convince her husband Yasir to remove the barrier in the Mosque. Later in the episode, the play is mentioned by name in reference to this strategy in a conversation between Sarah and Mayor Popowicz.

Translations

★ Perseus Project English translation by Jack Lindsay

★ , anonymous translator rumored to be Oscar Wilde; published in 1912 by the Athenian Society, London.

★ Benjamin B. Rogers, 1924 - verse

★ Jack Lindsay, 1925 - verse: full text

★ Arthur S. Way, 1934 - verse

★ Charles T. Murphy, 1944 - prose and verse

★ Dudley Fitts, 1954 - prose and verse

★ Douglass Parker, 1963 - verse

★ translator unknown - prose: full text

★ Jeffrey Henderson - 1988, verse

★ Nicholas Rudall, 1991

★ George Theodoridis, 2003 - prose: full text

★ Sarah Ruden, 2003

★ Paul Roche, 2004 - verse and prose

★ Edward Einhorn, 2005 prose and verse: partial text

★ Chris Tilley, 2003/06 - A musical version with prose and songs

References

1. Lysistrata (1976)
2. Lysistrata & the War
3. Lysistrata 100, by Aristophanes
4.
5. Gang wives call sex strike against crime

External links

★ Excerpt from the script of ''Lysistrata'' as adapted by Edward Einhorn

★ Article/essay on gender and power in ''Lysistrata''

★ Excerpts from ''Lysistrata'' with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley

★ ''Lysistrata & the War -- A Comic Opera in Mozartian Style" -- Updated from the ancient Greek play by Aristophanes. ISBN 0-912424-07-9.

★ ''Lysistrata's War'' -- An original rock opera.

★ ''Lysistrata: a musical sex-comedy'' -- link to MySpace page for Chris Tilley's musical version (contact info available).