Here's a little taste of what SBT's Andrew Hughes thought (full article link below):

For those who can handle and enjoy sexually explicit humor and language...New World’s "Lysistrata" should keep them laughing from beginning to finish and provide several pertinent points to consider while the United States continues its war in Iraq.

* Thanks Laura for sending this out.

Old woman to another: He had a beautiful, beautiful body, a handsome face, and a big old dick that would just kill ya!

It made me think of the show.

yay team!

My biggest fear for these performances is that the public won't get it, and will leave with a). A confused offended feeling and b). a general contempt for New World and their choice to put this play on. When I talked with some of my friends about it, they seemed less than thrilled about some of the content. It is very odd that this is a comedy, but it is a comedy that gets under our skin and lets us know what we feel like we can laugh at - as well as what our limit is concerning our self-improvement in a very flawed society. If people walk away with something that was not intended, at least the play is still a good time piece.

2) Lysistrata says that the "deal" is big and hard. When she says "deal", does she mean the *problem* or the *solution*? The problem is war, and lack of penises. The solution is to withhold sex, also penisless.

I wanted to let the cast, as well as the rest of our incredible crew, know how great it's been to meet and work with you all, and how this experience will benefit me in the future (as incredibly sweet memories)...

I need a tissue...

You're all wonderful, and it's been my pleasure.

Tara E.

The whole premise of Lysistrata's sex strike is a "Happy Idea", meaning it was a well known element of Greek Humor. Thus, it didn't have to make sense. The very idea of women going on a sex strike and taking over the citadel would have been ridiculous to audiences of that day (as ridiculous as greeks fighting greeks was to Aristophanes) and therein would have lay the humor.

I think the important thing to remember when doing this piece of theatre is the style of the piece. Think more cartoon than documentary. I tend to be a thinking actress myself and found myself struggling with this different style in Lysistrata.

http://www.indiana.edu/~thtr/2002/lysistrata/happy_idea.html

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/trailer2/large.html

1) At the beginning of the play (in "scene 2") when Lysistrata is talking to all the women, she makes it sound like they aren't getting any (i.e. fathers of their kids are off at war, lovers are gone too, can't buy dildos, etc.). So why does it make sense to withold sex if they aren't having sex in the first place? Or maybe they are having sex, since Myrrhine comes in late because she couldn't find her girdle and Calonice talks about doing "little favors" for their husbands. But then how is that consistent with what Lysistrata says?

2) In the first scene when Calonice asks if the deal for calling the women together is big and hard, Lysistrata makes it sound like it has nothing to do with sex/phalluses, but that's exactly what it has to do with. Is she just trying to take a more rational approach to the "problem"? Or maybe shes's trying to get the women out of some sort of stereotypical role in which women are only concerned with sex. Or perhaps she needs to point out that ending the war is more important than not having sex for a few days.

In thinking about these two points, it makes me wonder if I haven't been giving Lysistrata enough credit - I mean, I know that she has thought through this plan over and over again, but I think she has been grappling with the whole issue a lot more intensely than I realized: She has thought through every possible alternative solution, every possible way of approaching the women about this, every possible response or protest they could raise, and how to answer that. I wonder how long she has been having those sleepless nights!

Thoughts? Opinions? Contradictions? Feedback?

Okay, the game wasn't really so bad, but I was disappointed because we'd been planning to do a run-through of the play. I had some new things I was going to try out, and I had finally got all my lines well-memorized, and I was really looking forward to finally getting into more of the nuances of the play.

I suppose this is yet another example of Laura's directing skill; keep the actors challenged so that they don't become complacent.

I completely agree with Tara in regards to the ending of the play. It is the great flaw in this piece that Lysistrata is essentially a tool and when she serves her purpose, it's almost as if he forgets she were ever there. We will continue to work on ways to bring her to the forefront and I am definitely open to suggestions here folks. I did like the idea Cassie had of the women letting the men think they solved the war. That's a way of turning this flaw in on itself.

Nice comparison to The Producers Derek. Absolutely. And that's the tricky thing with this play. We don't want the audience to think we condone sex as a weapon or think men are idiots or women manipulative, and by doing it in this cartoonish style, we are essentially adding a wink at the end of everything.

I look forward to these next couple of weeks and our first runthrough on Tuesday!

I enjoyed the hot seat game as well, though I was also nervous. I was a good chance to explore character background, though I had a hard time getting into the physical aspects of character. It seemed like with all our outrageous characters we were on a Greek Jerry Springer, what with the drinking and sleeping out and such.

I appreciated your insight regarding the "out there" characterizations and the allusion to "The Producers". It helped me see the play in a new light.

We are also working with stereotypes, which can be dangerous. We need to show the ridiculousness of stereotypes by portraying our characters as ridiculous. By doing this, we acknowledge that these stereotypes exist while showing the audience that we do not take them seriously. This opens us up to laugh at these inane beliefs. This is why I love working with broad comedy such as this; it allows to us be over-the-top and almost otherworldy.

One of the biggest challenges of working with a script like this is that, even though we are using the script of the play to work as an antiwar satire, there is an inherent sexism worked into the play that we need to work against. It's a challenge to do so while still remaining true to the text of the play.

This is also the second play that I have worked with where the cast has played "The Hot Seat." It's a game where each actor takes the "hot seat" and is drilled with questions by the other "characters" sitting in front of her/him. This gives characters a chance to interact with each other in a way that they may not have otherwise. It also gives characters who don't interact with each other at all a chance to finally do so. I wasn't sure how well this would work with such "out there" characters, but it worked better than I thought it would; it had very intriguing results. I always find it extremely stressful at first, but it always ends up being a lot of fun. I have to admit that I felt a little uneasy when I responded as the sexist, overbearing Rod, just because I had to trust that the cast would realize that I was not truly responding as I would, but as my character would. It could have easily been seen as a group of guys using the activity as an excuse to rail against women. The game was beneficial and appropriate--I'm definitely glad we played--those were just my insecurities coming through.

Now I'm ready to start figuring out how to communicate all this to the audience.

Tara, I agree with you. I think that's why the last scene feels so awkward to me. I'm not sure if I have any good, concrete ideas of other ways to play it, since some of it is scripted, but I think that perhaps we could take a less drunk-out-of-our-minds-approach to that last bit and maybe appreciate more of the subtleties and relationships.

Also, maybe the ending is a product of Aristophanes' culture - women go back to being secondary, in their own private sphere, while men seem to take all the credit for making peace. Maybe that was accepted in ancient Greece, or maybe we can play it in a way that makes it obvious that the women are just humoring the men by letting them take credit for ending the war. (Or maybe that's degrading to the men. Hmmm...)

Regardless, I think we could be a lot more careful of inter-personal relating and connection in that last scene.

SECONDLY, I came across this review of a dance company that talks about "artistic dissent", and the ways that art can be, and is, political. It reminded me a bit of what we are doing with this play, and it's definitely an interesting read. Plus, the picutre reminded me of one of the chorus fight scenes...