Metro Pulse/Backstage/Lysistrata

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What:
Lysistrata

When:
August 29-31, 8 p.m.

Where:
Black Box Theatre, Homberg Place, 523-0900

Cost:
$12; students/seniors $8

The battle of the sexes really heats up in Lysistrata

by Paige M. Travis

When it's too hot outside to think straight, I, like most people, seek distraction. My favorite diversions are television reruns, Ben & Jerry's by the pint, marathon quests through the aisles of Big Lots—anything to keep my mind off the sweltering heat, not to mention my enduring state of singleness. But leave it to the Actors Co-op to wake me up from my pleasant air-conditioned reverie and make me face the sweaty facts: it's hot here in the sultry South, and I'm not, as Mick Jagger might put it, getting any action.

As the medium of my wake-up call, the Co-op has chosen Lysistrata, a play written in 411 BC by Aristophanes. I'm not sure how the Greeks felt about major human endeavors like war and sex, but after having seen Lysistrata, I feel a lot closer to the ancients. Their wants and needs were not that much different from ours. Take the women of Athens and Sparta for instance. They didn't like war, but they did like their nookie. And even though Aristophanes probably didn't base his play on real events, I like to imagine that at least one of the truces between the warring factions of Greece was inspired by a woman like Lysistrata.

To end the war between Athens and Sparta, Lysistrata (Sara Pat Schwabe) has an idea that she shares with the women of Greece: the women will withhold sex from their men until both camps agree to call a truce. Great sacrifice and self-control are required from the doubtful women, but they agree to wear their sheerest gowns and drive their men wild without giving in. And so the games begin.

Soon the men show up to find their women holed up in the Acropolis guarding the money intended for war. The ladies lay down the "no truce, no sex" law, but the men won't give up without a struggle. In a showdown like a "West Side Story" rumble, the women hog-tie the men to show they mean business. The guys are significantly humbled by the ordeal (and perhaps even a little aroused by the use of handcuffs). Five days into the standoff, Cinesias (R.A. Shane Chuvalas) shows up to convince his wife, Myrrhine (Amy Hembree), to participate in the "rites of Aphrodite," but she tricks him with extended foreplay before she runs back inside the Acropolis.

The text is full of double entendres and allusions to the men's physically painful erections, which are illustrated to humorous effect with a kind of tent-pole device arranged under the togas of the guys from Athens and Sparta who come to make peace.

The men don't make fools of themselves for nothing: these women are hot. Bare limbs and curvaceous bodies are bound with tight and silky garments. It's like a living lingerie catalog, only with women from real life. The actresses—Schwabe, Hembree, Katie Norwood, Sarah Campbell, Ali Mitchell, and Susannah Devereux—represent a wide range of ages and body types. Costumes designed by Campbell further express each woman's individuality, and enough cleavage is bared to make things interesting, but not so much to turn the play into a peep-show. And since all's fair in love and war, the guys are on display too. Chuvalas and Kevin Velasco take off their shirts for the cause, exhibiting musculature worthy of the best Greek soldiers. As the law-keeping magistrate, Ryder Davis keeps his clothes on, but whips out his best New York accent to help keep the peace. His old-school "Car 54, Where Are You?" approach is a clever addition to the play; the comedic element helps balance the sexual tension with a dose of humor.

Director Amy Hubbard has cut a cast that contained male and female choruses plus various other slaves and village people into a more manageable and Black Box-sized cast of 10. The choruses' lines have been given to the characters played by Greg Congleton and Devereux, who engage in saucy wordplay like a physical embodiment of the Battle of the Sexes. They wink and coax each other into a kind of rhythmic bullfight which culminates in the final scene as the truce is called and the couples are free to do as they will.

I liked the play because it places the women in positions of power, both sexually and politically. Schwabe is a strong and confidant Lysistrata; she knows what she wants and how to get it. I liked that the men appear foolish, but they aren't too dumb to compromise. The women's desires are portrayed as equal to men's and available for a bit of bargaining if necessary. Aristophanes might not be voted into the Feminist Hall of Fame, but he's OK by me.

Most of all, the play is sexy and fun. When fans are handed out during intermission, take one. It's going to be a hot night.