Lysistrata

Is that a spear in your toga or are you just happy to see us? Athens and Sparta have been at war for years with no end in sight. What’s a peace-loving girl to do? Lysistrata has the solution—she unites the women of Athens in a general sex strike to force the soldiers to come to their senses. Aristophanes’ great comedy of gender politics has been a hit since 411 B.C. and Lysistrata is the perfect vehicle for us to welcome Cherry Jones back to the A.R.T. Company.

Lysistrata is a co-production with the Prince Music Theater of Philadelphia. It marks the tenth anniversary of CrossCurrents—sponsored by Philip Morris Companies, Inc.—a multi-year collaborative effort between the A.R.T. and the Prince Music Theater, designed to create and sustain a body of new music theater works. Special thanks to The Costas and Mary Maliotis Charitable foundation and the Gerondelis Foundation for their support of the presentation of classical Greek drama at the A.R.T. With the kind permission of Marian Seldes, a few interpolated situations have been borrowed from Gilbert Seldes’s 1930 adaptation.

SYNOPSIS

The Greek city-states have been locked in civil war for twenty years. The rival provinces of Athens and Sparta struggle endlessly for control over contested territories, and the war threatens to wipe out the male population. Lysistrata, an Athenian woman, decides to take matters into her own hands. She summons women from all over Greece, and persuades them not to sleep with their husbands until a peace treaty has been ratified. Meanwhile the older women of Athens seize the Acropolis and the state treasury, cutting off funds for the war effort. Lysistrata’s plan works with remarkable speed, and soon had all Greek manhood fallen on hard times.

Special thanks to The Costas and Mary Maliotis Charitable foundation and the Gerondelis Foundation for their support of the presentation of classical Greek drama at the A.R.T.