IB Director’s Notebook
Ben Silvernale and Karsten Hald
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes
The play text, its content, and the ideas presented in the play
Understanding the time period which Lysistrata is from is key to understanding the themes and ideas that spring from the text itself. It was written during the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between the armies of Athens and Sparta. It was filled with many truces and declarations of war, and caused great devastation throughout southern Greece. In his play, Aristophanes clearly demonstrates his anti-war ideologies through the portrayal of the fragility of the conflict and the relations between the characters in the play. For instance, the fact that the war can deteriorate because of refusal of sex and the happiness and joy of characters at the end because of the peace are demonstrations of Aristophanes’ opinions on the futility of war.
One of the main themes of the play is immediately shown in the first scene, as Lysistrata meets with her Athenian friend Calonice. The proposal of the sex strike of all women throughout southern Greece as an effective means of dismantling the battles between Athens and Sparta shows the theme of the abilities of women. During the time period, women were thought inferior in terms of strength, mind and soul, and as such they were not allowed to participate in theatre, fight in wars, or attend educational institutions. Aristophanes obliquely announced his disapproval of these gender expectations, and also provided a radical change to societal norms by giving women a powerful main role in Lysistrata, although they are mocked throughout the play, as the play was both produced by men and acted out by men.
Through the dominance of women in Lysistrata, many prominent themes arise. To name a few, they include the challenging of power, politics, and masculinity, women and femininity, sex, and the endurance of the individual. If seen from a deeper perspective, Lysistrata could be identified as a grand power struggle (political, social, physical, etc) between men and women. The play displays men as belligerent, incompetent, and manipulable fools. The sign of their masculinity is constantly mocked and taken advantage of by the powerful roles of women. Lysistrata also demonstrates progressive thinking in the themes of politics. Women did not have a say in any political matters during the time in which the play was produced, as they were only seen as something to please and support the male members of a family. These preconceptions change in Lysistrata, as women force men to think of the effects of war from a political standpoint that includes a broader perspective, including that of their feminine peers. Although the men in the play are shown as sex crazed, so are the women. What differentiates the two is the ability to persevere as shown by Lysistrata and her radical band of feminine followers. The struggle for masculine dominance and power shown by the male characters also demonstrate the stubbornness and less desirable traits of being overbearing.
As we analyzed Lysistrata for its themes, we took into consideration of the possibilities of communicating the same to the audiences of our play. We decided to amplify some of these with the use of stage and costume design, character interaction, and props that conveyed traits such as masculinity or power. The use of such items of the time period of which our play is set could also be used to make additional contemporary radical themes that were not present in Lysistrata.
Our artistic responses, creative ideas and explorations and my own experiences of live theatre as a spectator
Problems that Need to be Addressed:
When developing the play, certain questions arise that are essential to the plot, the themes, and fluidity of the piece?
Influences for our production of Lysistrata:
Our ideas for Lysistrata have been influenced from a variety of spectacle plays, but what we had in mind was in between that of a minimalist production and that of a grand spectacle whose premise mostly resided on the complexity of the set. We chose the play Rumors, a satire set in the late 20th century, as our main influence for the set and characters. In Rumors, one of the most important aspects to the progression of the plot is the interaction between the characters. Since Lysistrata is a play based on dialogue and interaction, we wanted to apply some of the same principles and etiquette of characters to Lysistrata. The set in Rumors never changes, but is very elaborate, making for complicated situations. What we wanted to convert from Rumors to Lysistrata was the inclusion of a somewhat elaborate set. The characters in Lysistrata traditionally do not interact with props and costuming objects very often, but that was what we wanted to change in our production. We want to have the characters in Lysistrata employ props and costuming pieces as much of that in Rumors. We decided to set our version of Lysistrata in 17th century England, during the English Civil War. The costuming and set will be much more embellished, as the characters will have many different objects to make use of. Through the use of multiple assets, we want to make the characters more fascinating and captivating than the original production.
Photo #1: An example of the dialogue between characters from the play Rumors.
Photo courtesy of Espen Swanson
Brainstorming, Analyzation, and Development
When we first started thinking about where and when to set the play, we decided on a time and place interesting to the both of us - England, during the English Civil War. Following this, it was relatively simple to decide which side would be which - we set the Athenians as the Cavaliers because they were in possession of greater wealth and more culturally refined. The Spartans we set as the Roundheads, simply because that was the remaining side. After this we thought about influences from live theatre production we had seen to get ideas about how we wanted characters to interact and such.
Date and Time Period
Costuming (look to photo #2)
Stage Design
Propylaea and Acropolis (photo #3)
In the original play, there is one scene inside the Acropolis where Cinesias is waiting for Myrrhine by the Temple of Chloe. In our version of the play, we decided to make the Temple into a simple church.
Render of wall and gates (photo #4)
We decided to make the Propylaea into a castle barbican, because of the time period we decided to set our version of the play in. We used a double-gated barbican so as to allow for easier differentiation between the inside and outside of the Acropolis, using a heavy oak and iron gate on the outside, and an iron portcullis on the inside. The Acropolis itself also contains other elements, such as the church, common in castles.
Banquet hall design and inspiration (photo #5)
Render of basic banquet hall design (photo #6)
We found the inspiration for our version of the banquet hall at the end of the play from a combination of the Great Hall from Harry Potter, and simple castle banquet hall designs. Since there is only one brief scene involving the banquet hall, we went with a rather simple design, with two banquet tables with benches, and a table on the raised dais.
The next step was how we would transition scenes. The first thing we decided on was to have the barbican divided vertically down the middle, so as to allow it to be pulled apart and moved offstage. We also needed a way to transition between outside and inside the gate, and at first we thought about being able to rotate the wall, but soon decided this would be impractical. Our solution was to have the two different gates be separate from the wall, and simply switch between the two by pulling both out, switching them, and putting them back. To switch to the banquet hall, we will simply pull the wall apart and have the back of the banquet hall behind with the tables ready to be moved into proper position on the stage. This is because the banquet hall is the last scene, and so we did not have to worry about how to switch back.
Lighting (photo #7)
We decided that the use of blues and oranges would work well, because of the contrast of warm and cold colors. Another reason we chose these particular colors is to highlight Lysistrata, whose costume will be a light blue.
My directorial intentions and the intended impact on an audience
Director's Vision: Our vision is to create a satirical piece that is visually pleasing to the viewer, and captivates the mind through underlying themes, dialogue, and aesthetics. Using warm and cold lighting, blocking of characters and the space between them, and costume color, we want to create a piece filled with as much emotion as comedy.
Intended Impact for the Audience: Although our play sets Lysistrata in a different time period than the original one, we want to raise awareness for the themes present in the story as they are still relevant in contemporary society. Power, sex, gender roles, masculinity and femininity, and politics are still in question today, and we wanted to cultivate an environment of thought that makes people question social issues like these within their own lives.
How I would stage one moment of the play
For the moment of the play we had to stage we chose the moment where the scene transitions from front of the Propylaea to the banquet hall. After the chorus’ short speech, the scene changes to the market loungers and the porter in front of the banquet hall. We chose this moment because, although it does not feature any main characters, it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the scene change between the Propylaea and the banquet hall. We plan for the chorus to finish its speech, and then the set would go dark. While the set is dark, the wall would be pulled apart and moved offstage. Following this, the long banquet tables would be turned outwards and slid out onto the thrust stage, and the table and chairs on the dais would also be slid out a short ways away from the wall. The opening up of the wall of the Acropolis and the appearance of the tables represents the the divine intervention of peace, and breaking down the walls between different peoples. The backdrop would be the back wall of the hall. To emphasize the conjunction of peoples in the end, we wanted to use orange light on the final set. We decided to keep all the action of the final scenes inside the banquet hall, instead of outside as in the original. To do this, instead of the market loungers coming up to the porter outside the hall, they would be inside but the porter would prevent them from moving to the tables. After this, the Spartans and Athenians would move the tables to the sides of the stage and all of the singing and dancing would be performed between them.
Quick render of the wall split apart with the banquet tables (photo #8)
Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1400%E2%80%931500_in_European_fashion
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/317785317427746901/
http://www.history.org/history/clothing/men/mglossary.cfm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegreaves/sets/72157606275492868/
http://the1642tailor.com/256-2/
http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery907-swgfl.html
https://s201.photobucket.com
https://dancingbeastie.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/now-this-is-a-castle/
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Hall
http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-1272/1316--Articuli-Cleri.aspx
http://www.123rf.com/photo_7902936_heavy-wooden-gate-in-an-ancient-palace.html
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Hall
http://www.castlewales.com/curtain.html
Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” Ted Garvin and the Distributed Processing Team, 2005.
O. Brockett and R Ball. The Essential Theatre. Wadsworth (2011)
Ben Silvernale and Karsten Hald
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes
The play text, its content, and the ideas presented in the play
Understanding the time period which Lysistrata is from is key to understanding the themes and ideas that spring from the text itself. It was written during the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between the armies of Athens and Sparta. It was filled with many truces and declarations of war, and caused great devastation throughout southern Greece. In his play, Aristophanes clearly demonstrates his anti-war ideologies through the portrayal of the fragility of the conflict and the relations between the characters in the play. For instance, the fact that the war can deteriorate because of refusal of sex and the happiness and joy of characters at the end because of the peace are demonstrations of Aristophanes’ opinions on the futility of war.
One of the main themes of the play is immediately shown in the first scene, as Lysistrata meets with her Athenian friend Calonice. The proposal of the sex strike of all women throughout southern Greece as an effective means of dismantling the battles between Athens and Sparta shows the theme of the abilities of women. During the time period, women were thought inferior in terms of strength, mind and soul, and as such they were not allowed to participate in theatre, fight in wars, or attend educational institutions. Aristophanes obliquely announced his disapproval of these gender expectations, and also provided a radical change to societal norms by giving women a powerful main role in Lysistrata, although they are mocked throughout the play, as the play was both produced by men and acted out by men.
Through the dominance of women in Lysistrata, many prominent themes arise. To name a few, they include the challenging of power, politics, and masculinity, women and femininity, sex, and the endurance of the individual. If seen from a deeper perspective, Lysistrata could be identified as a grand power struggle (political, social, physical, etc) between men and women. The play displays men as belligerent, incompetent, and manipulable fools. The sign of their masculinity is constantly mocked and taken advantage of by the powerful roles of women. Lysistrata also demonstrates progressive thinking in the themes of politics. Women did not have a say in any political matters during the time in which the play was produced, as they were only seen as something to please and support the male members of a family. These preconceptions change in Lysistrata, as women force men to think of the effects of war from a political standpoint that includes a broader perspective, including that of their feminine peers. Although the men in the play are shown as sex crazed, so are the women. What differentiates the two is the ability to persevere as shown by Lysistrata and her radical band of feminine followers. The struggle for masculine dominance and power shown by the male characters also demonstrate the stubbornness and less desirable traits of being overbearing.
As we analyzed Lysistrata for its themes, we took into consideration of the possibilities of communicating the same to the audiences of our play. We decided to amplify some of these with the use of stage and costume design, character interaction, and props that conveyed traits such as masculinity or power. The use of such items of the time period of which our play is set could also be used to make additional contemporary radical themes that were not present in Lysistrata.
Our artistic responses, creative ideas and explorations and my own experiences of live theatre as a spectator
Problems that Need to be Addressed:
When developing the play, certain questions arise that are essential to the plot, the themes, and fluidity of the piece?
- When should the play be set?
- How do we make the characters more intriguing and captivating to watch?
- What ideas and themes from other productions can we utilize to improve our production?
- How will the stage be set and how will scene changes work?
- Why would we set it during the time we chose?
Influences for our production of Lysistrata:
Our ideas for Lysistrata have been influenced from a variety of spectacle plays, but what we had in mind was in between that of a minimalist production and that of a grand spectacle whose premise mostly resided on the complexity of the set. We chose the play Rumors, a satire set in the late 20th century, as our main influence for the set and characters. In Rumors, one of the most important aspects to the progression of the plot is the interaction between the characters. Since Lysistrata is a play based on dialogue and interaction, we wanted to apply some of the same principles and etiquette of characters to Lysistrata. The set in Rumors never changes, but is very elaborate, making for complicated situations. What we wanted to convert from Rumors to Lysistrata was the inclusion of a somewhat elaborate set. The characters in Lysistrata traditionally do not interact with props and costuming objects very often, but that was what we wanted to change in our production. We want to have the characters in Lysistrata employ props and costuming pieces as much of that in Rumors. We decided to set our version of Lysistrata in 17th century England, during the English Civil War. The costuming and set will be much more embellished, as the characters will have many different objects to make use of. Through the use of multiple assets, we want to make the characters more fascinating and captivating than the original production.
Photo #1: An example of the dialogue between characters from the play Rumors.
Photo courtesy of Espen Swanson
Brainstorming, Analyzation, and Development
When we first started thinking about where and when to set the play, we decided on a time and place interesting to the both of us - England, during the English Civil War. Following this, it was relatively simple to decide which side would be which - we set the Athenians as the Cavaliers because they were in possession of greater wealth and more culturally refined. The Spartans we set as the Roundheads, simply because that was the remaining side. After this we thought about influences from live theatre production we had seen to get ideas about how we wanted characters to interact and such.
Date and Time Period
- Wars of Religion
- English Civil War
- Spartans- Roundheads: commoner clothing, lack of hair
- Athenians- Cavaliers: aristocratic, long flowing hair
- Athenians were of a higher wealth and social class than Spartans which is why we chose them to be the Cavaliers, as they were mostly upperclassmen
- English Civil War
Costuming (look to photo #2)
- Women
- Spartans- bonnets, some embroidery, Puritan clothing, solid colors, simple
- Athenians- corsets, dresses with trains, ornate, no hats, gloves
- Lysistrata- Athenian with dress with contrasting color themes to appear unique in a crowd
- Men
- Chorus of men - nobility: wigs, tights, buckled shoes
- Athenians - long hair, conical helmets, browns, greys, simple armor
Stage Design
Propylaea and Acropolis (photo #3)
In the original play, there is one scene inside the Acropolis where Cinesias is waiting for Myrrhine by the Temple of Chloe. In our version of the play, we decided to make the Temple into a simple church.
Render of wall and gates (photo #4)
We decided to make the Propylaea into a castle barbican, because of the time period we decided to set our version of the play in. We used a double-gated barbican so as to allow for easier differentiation between the inside and outside of the Acropolis, using a heavy oak and iron gate on the outside, and an iron portcullis on the inside. The Acropolis itself also contains other elements, such as the church, common in castles.
Banquet hall design and inspiration (photo #5)
Render of basic banquet hall design (photo #6)
We found the inspiration for our version of the banquet hall at the end of the play from a combination of the Great Hall from Harry Potter, and simple castle banquet hall designs. Since there is only one brief scene involving the banquet hall, we went with a rather simple design, with two banquet tables with benches, and a table on the raised dais.
The next step was how we would transition scenes. The first thing we decided on was to have the barbican divided vertically down the middle, so as to allow it to be pulled apart and moved offstage. We also needed a way to transition between outside and inside the gate, and at first we thought about being able to rotate the wall, but soon decided this would be impractical. Our solution was to have the two different gates be separate from the wall, and simply switch between the two by pulling both out, switching them, and putting them back. To switch to the banquet hall, we will simply pull the wall apart and have the back of the banquet hall behind with the tables ready to be moved into proper position on the stage. This is because the banquet hall is the last scene, and so we did not have to worry about how to switch back.
Lighting (photo #7)
We decided that the use of blues and oranges would work well, because of the contrast of warm and cold colors. Another reason we chose these particular colors is to highlight Lysistrata, whose costume will be a light blue.
My directorial intentions and the intended impact on an audience
Director's Vision: Our vision is to create a satirical piece that is visually pleasing to the viewer, and captivates the mind through underlying themes, dialogue, and aesthetics. Using warm and cold lighting, blocking of characters and the space between them, and costume color, we want to create a piece filled with as much emotion as comedy.
Intended Impact for the Audience: Although our play sets Lysistrata in a different time period than the original one, we want to raise awareness for the themes present in the story as they are still relevant in contemporary society. Power, sex, gender roles, masculinity and femininity, and politics are still in question today, and we wanted to cultivate an environment of thought that makes people question social issues like these within their own lives.
How I would stage one moment of the play
For the moment of the play we had to stage we chose the moment where the scene transitions from front of the Propylaea to the banquet hall. After the chorus’ short speech, the scene changes to the market loungers and the porter in front of the banquet hall. We chose this moment because, although it does not feature any main characters, it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the scene change between the Propylaea and the banquet hall. We plan for the chorus to finish its speech, and then the set would go dark. While the set is dark, the wall would be pulled apart and moved offstage. Following this, the long banquet tables would be turned outwards and slid out onto the thrust stage, and the table and chairs on the dais would also be slid out a short ways away from the wall. The opening up of the wall of the Acropolis and the appearance of the tables represents the the divine intervention of peace, and breaking down the walls between different peoples. The backdrop would be the back wall of the hall. To emphasize the conjunction of peoples in the end, we wanted to use orange light on the final set. We decided to keep all the action of the final scenes inside the banquet hall, instead of outside as in the original. To do this, instead of the market loungers coming up to the porter outside the hall, they would be inside but the porter would prevent them from moving to the tables. After this, the Spartans and Athenians would move the tables to the sides of the stage and all of the singing and dancing would be performed between them.
Quick render of the wall split apart with the banquet tables (photo #8)
Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1400%E2%80%931500_in_European_fashion
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/317785317427746901/
http://www.history.org/history/clothing/men/mglossary.cfm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevegreaves/sets/72157606275492868/
http://the1642tailor.com/256-2/
http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/gallery907-swgfl.html
https://s201.photobucket.com
https://dancingbeastie.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/now-this-is-a-castle/
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Hall
http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-1272/1316--Articuli-Cleri.aspx
http://www.123rf.com/photo_7902936_heavy-wooden-gate-in-an-ancient-palace.html
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Hall
http://www.castlewales.com/curtain.html
Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” Ted Garvin and the Distributed Processing Team, 2005.
O. Brockett and R Ball. The Essential Theatre. Wadsworth (2011)