Lysistrata

In all honesty, I was not looking forward to reading an ancient Greek play. I was terrified that the English translation would be hard to follow,  and that I would be unable to follow the plot because I do not know much about ancient Greek history. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that not only is the play fairly easy to follow, but also the play is extremely humorous as well (particularly the scene with Kinesis and Myrhine).

            While reading the play, I pictured that male actors played all of the female characters because there were no female actors during Aristophanes lifetime (specifically for some reason I pictured that Lysistrata was played by Robin Williams as his character in Mrs. Doubtfire).

            While Lysistrata rejects the female stereotype and is “…positively ashamed to be a woman,” she exploits women as sexual creatures, insinuating that women are only good for sex. I found this to be somewhat contradicting because while Lysistrata rejects the female stereotype, she also encourages the women to play up the classic stereotype that a woman’s greatest role to a man is related to sex.
            On a different note, I thoroughly enjoyed the role that the Choruses had the play particularly because I did not pick up on the purpose of the chorus until the second read through. Not only did the chorus add comic relief to the play, but I also appreciated that the chorus particularly mirrored the action of the play. As the tension between the female and male characters increased, so did the fighting between the female and male choruses. I also appreciated the fact that Aristophanes brought the chorus together once peace was reached in Greece.