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Theatre Journal 55.1 (2003) 137-138



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Lysistrata.By Aristophanes. Adapted by Robert Brustein and the ART Company. American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 28 May 2002.
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Stepping down as artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre after twenty-two years, Robert Brustein conceived reviving Aristophanes' ribald antiwar comedy, Lysistrata, as a raucous farewell bash. The new musical adaptation would reunite key members of the ART family: lead actor Cherry Jones, director Andrei Serban, set designer Michael H. Yeargan, and adapter Larry Gelbart, author of the Plautus-derived hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Based on their collective track record, this team seemed ideally suited to updating Aristophanes' satire, whose peace-loving heroine persuades an alliance of Greek women to start a sex strike in order to drive their warring husbands to the negotiating table.

The production soon ran into trouble, however. The original partnership of Gelbart and songwriters Alan Menken and David Zippel was dismissed amid reports that the cast found their work too vulgar. Brustein came up with his own, apparently less risqué script, jointly credited to him and the ART company, and at the eleventh hour drafted Hair composer Galt MacDermot and lyricist Matty Selman to come up with some tunes. The results were shaky. Accompanied by a four-piece band, the cast of sixteen gamely strove to infuse comic energy into tepid song-and-dance numbers and a limp script. Only ART veteran and recent Tony Award winner Cherry Jones, who played the title character, came out with her dignity (and her demure tunic) fully intact.

Although the comedy has been in constant production for twenty-five centuries, its relentless lewdness challenges contemporary sensibilities. Produced by male actors for war-weary Athenian citizens in 411 BCE, the play's bawdry now feels dated, obvious, and not a little sexist. In trying to steer a middle course between coarseness and Grundyism, the ART script lost the pungent flavor of the original while still hitting some crasser notes. "Women only understand a smack across the kisser," intoned the male chorus. "We'll have your balls for breakfast and spread them on our toast," retorted the women. The actors did what they could to make such exchanges amusing but faced an uphill battle. [End Page 137]

Brustein replaced the chorus of old crones with a single widow, Belphragia (Paula Plum), and expanded Aristophanes' salty troupe of sexually frustrated Greek wives. These included Lysistrata's wisecracking friend Kalonika (Karen MacDonald); a plucky young wife, Myrrhina (Chelsey Rives); a steroid-pumped Spartan, Lampito (the very funny Stephanie Roth-Haberle, who delivered her lines Schwarzenegger-style); the ditzy Penelope (Hannah Bos); and Corinthian country bumpkin Dipsas (Amber Allison), whose padded rear provided several of the evening's cheapest laughs. While these actors brought spunk to their lines, Marina Draghici's needlessly ugly costumes turned the women into crude, garter-snapping cartoon figures. It was as if the production were frightened of the female sexual allure it intended to flaunt.

This production served its male actors better. Aristophanes' chorus of old men became four crusty retirees led by walking-stick-wielding Thomas Derrah, who brought a welcome sprezzatura to such numbers as "It's a Man's World" and "Deus Ex." Filling out the codger brigade, ART stalwarts Remo Airaldi, Jeremy Geidt, and Alvin Epstein displayed professional smarts and keen comic timing; in one wonderful Didi and Gogo-like moment, Epstein and Geidt waltzed together. That the men's numbers were genuinely witty and even tuneful helped. By comparison, the female numbers seemed sketchily conceived and under-choreographed. Speak-singing was the order of the day.

The play's centerpiece was the lengthy debate between Lysistrata and the President of the Athenian Senate (Will Lebow), who struggled to retain his dignity even as his balloon-phallus repeatedly rose. The absurdly beskirted Lebow had a few good lines—"I don't take orders from a skirt. (Pause.) This is an ensemble."—and delivered them well, although he seemed embarrassed by the misogynistic epithets the script forced him to deliver.

"The whole world is tense, so we're making...

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