Ancient play comes to life

Those who are up on the drama department's recent doings know of "Lysistrata"'s highly sexual character, graphic costumes and bawdy scenes. And with such IU staples as the Kinsey Institute and the dorm porn, "Lysistrata" just seems like another way of expressing IU's obsession with sex. \nThose who have this impression, however, should go see the play. This production is much more than an opportunity to see partial nudity; it is a veritable masterpiece of comic theater performed in a strikingly unique fashion.\nThe play itself has a simple plot. The Greek women from various cities are sick and tired of their husbands constantly fighting wars and demanding their much-deprived sex during their brief returns home. Lysistrata, an Athenian woman, gathers women from the various Greek cities and they make a pledge to deprive their husbands of sex until the war's end. \nBoth sexes go through much difficulty in dealing with the absence of a sex life, but in the end it is the organized and much more rational women who prevail, resulting in a peace for all of Greece.\nWas the use of sex in the performance in good taste? No. But that's exactly what fits best into the script. Aristophanes wrote an unbelievably hilarious, direct and open comedy about sex and the emphasis placed upon it by so many. \nThe play simply could not be done well without going a bit over the edge to convey the overtly sexual theme. The characters are nearly all sex-obsessed or at least sex-driven, so an effective production about these types of people needs to be brutally realistic.\nThe script itself deserves some attention. The translation (by Ranjit Bolt) used in this production was an interesting one. It used modern dialect but kept the play in its original rhyming verse form. \nAlthough at first rhyme may sound like a quaint and cheesy idea, it was a subtle yet powerful device. It drew the audience further into the lines of the characters. The rhyme also augmented the comic nature of the play. \nAnd the actors! Oh, I doubt there has ever been such an enthusiastic cast as that of "Lysistrata." All of the actors did their best to bring out the complexities of each character. Of these the iron-willed, unyielding Lysistrata herself (graduate student Sheila Regan) and the cold and misogynistic magistrate (Sam Wooten) had the greatest depth and were perhaps the best-executed of all. \nExcellent performances were also given by seniors Eliza Hart as the nymphomaniac Kalonike and Molly Wright as the bubbly Myrrhina. Credit also must go to Theatre and Drama major junior Josh Gaboian as the self-absorbed Kinesias. \nThe male and female choruses deserve a great deal of recognition as well for fantastic singing and a mastery of the choreography. So too do the tramps who provided a bit of light entertainment between scenes. \nWith all the hilarious lines and actions going on, not a single actor broke character. Although not immediately noticeable, this fact alone denotes a top-quality cast.\nThe costumes were definitely important in setting the play's mood. The women's attire was especially racy, resembling lingerie. Quite liberal amounts of flesh were shown, not to mention those added perks like knee-high leather boots, flower-shaped nipple covers and translucent gowns. \nThe male costumes were rather subdued in comparison to the female. Their colors were more toned down and their design less revealing, but they had the added feature of a personalized phallus -- the soldiers had camouflaged ones and the magistrate had a pin-striped one. \nBut far from being a mere shock device, the phalli played quite an important part in the dialogue and were necessary to understand some of the actions (like grabbing the phallus) done on stage. Overall, the costumes were colorful, vibrant and intriguing. The costume team did a wonderful job in bringing out the liveliness in the play through the wardrobe.\nThe setting was very well done also; it was not bland at all but also not intrusive enough to detract from the cast's actions. It was of an ancient Greek style design, but with a more colorful twist. It also had signs of damage to convey the feeling of a war-torn Greece. \nThe Shakespearian two-level stage was also a feature of this production, which in light of the script was a necessity, but it also gave more breadth and scope to the actions done on stage and focused attention at all parts.\nThe music was exciting and appropriate for such a play. A combination of rock, jazz and techno gave the light, comic feel inherent in the play. The songs, too, were quite hilarious spin-offs popular songs set with words that the actors managed to sing without releasing a single chuckle.\nThen there's the play itself. Its most obvious genre is a sex farce. It definitely shows the extremities to which something as minor as sex drives people. Every noble and stupid action is motivated by sex, which adds both a believable nature and a ridiculous one at the same time, making it a comedy with a meaning. \nBut the message also goes deeper than sex. Aristophanes sends a message about the folly of war. In the plot he shows to what drastic measures women have to resort to get the men to stop fighting. And since that is done in an almost laughable manner, it says something about the senselessness of a pointless war like the one the Greeks fought among themselves.\n"Lysistrata" is not only a biting, witty comedy but also has a deeper meaning. When this is performed by wonderful actors with great costumes and scenery, the entire play comes to life as never before. This production truly shows how timeless a classical drama can be.