As the lights dimmed at Saturday night’s performance of Lysistrata-a proto-feminist, anti-war parable from ancient Greece-a group of high-school students behind me wouldn’t stop talking. The play opened with videos of violent air-to-ground combat displayed on two small screens mounted high on either side of the stage. “What’s this?” one of the kids asked, obviously confused by seeing modern footage at the opening of a play written in 411 BC. “It’s a modernization!” another one exclaimed, probably louder than she realized. Despite her lack of tact, this chatty Cathy was correct-sort of. It’s confusing.
As written, Lysistrata tells the humourous story of a group of Athenian women who stage a no-sex strike to convince their powerful husbands to end the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesian League. Saturday’s show offered a clearly new, but not altogether refreshing, take.
While this production’s website calls their version “a contemporary spin”-implying a modernization-the program cryptically states the setting as being “once upon a time tomorrow, ” which would suggest that this is in fact some sort of “futurization.” Things get more baffling.
The set is a multi-tiered representation of the area around the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. Because the play is supposedly set in the future, the gateway is constructed out of television monitors (which display only static, for some reason). Despite the electricity that’s obviously powering the monitors, the Athenian men seem to rely on fire to keep warm and torches to light their way. What gives?
Also, the vintage war footage shown at the beginning implies that the Peloponnesian War has also been “updated” to at least include weapons of relatively modern warfare. Not so. Returning soldiers refer only to shields and swords, not the F16s and firebombs seen in the beginning. Additionally, one character wears a tri-corner hat, reminiscent of America’s Revolutionary War, while another dons a Spanish conquistador’s helmet. And, honestly, what was with the Polkaroo baby? When the hell are we? Are we in some post-apocalyptic world where soldiers dress up in the style of their favourite past military conflict and fight fighter jets with sticks and swords? Come on-even Baz Luhrmann was able to creatively solve the problem of sword references in his update of Romeo and Juliet.
Okay, so maybe the answer is more abstract. Maybe everything is taking place “out of time” in some crazily absurd universe where people have TV (but don’t use it), listen to really bland orchestral-techno, have Cyrano de Bergerac noses, and throw their Polkaroo children around the Acropolis. But if this is the answer, then answer me this: if nothing of the scene or set makes any sense, if the whole conceptual story arc is rendered inherently irrational, how are people supposed to properly appreciate and assess the very real issues about war and gender politics Aristophanes raises?
Lysistrata
Directed by Tabby Johnson
Hart House Theatre
Rating: VV
Other problems included cheesy, badly-sung chorus tunes (the Mission Impossible theme and a Conga number) that accompany onstage action and a solo soul song that was weakly sung and seemed even more out of place than everything else.
In the title role of Lysistrata Kate Hodgert showed good stage presence and enough confidence to justify casting her as the leading lady. What I couldn’t stand was her shrill battle cry of “eieieieieieieieieieieiei!” which she screeched at top volume on multiple occasions. The first time I heard it I thought to myself: “this is almost worse than listening to a Kevin Federline song.” After hearing it five more times by show’s end I was convinced that I’d found The Most Annoying Sound in the World, Ever. It was literally unbearable.
Ironically, in a play about the empowerment of women, the male portion of the cast shone the brightest. Luke LaRocque displayed his good sense of comic timing as the purple-lipsticked Athenian magistrate, and Carey Graham was also quite funny in the kinetic role of sex-starved Cinesias. One of the best (and funniest) scenes in the whole production featured an exasperated Cinesias trying to convince his rebelling wife Myrrhine (played by above-this-crap actress Maarika Pinkney) to go to bed with him.
Despite her ditzy one-dimensional character (no fault of Pinkney’s) she stood out as a strong actress and dancer-the latter showcased in a solo dance she performed towards the end of the show.
Also good were the thunder and lightning sound and light cues. It’s not often that the two are so in synch as to accurately suggest a real weather phenomenon.
Sadly, these few good points were not enough to save this poorly thought-out and tragically flawed production. Futurizations of classic plays can be interesting and insightful-they just have to make sense.
