Return to Table of Contents
We had been feeling a growing frustration and helplessness about world events and had been searching for ways to make a difference...The Lysistrata Project offered us the opportunity to make a larger statement and to become part of an international movement.
| Emily Davis is the artistic director for the Messenger Theatre Company in New York City. |
New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org
|
|
|
|
PUBLICATIONS | VOICES | BACK ISSUES | FOLKLORE IN ARCHIVES | FOLK ARTISTS SELF-MGT | ORDER PUBLICATIONS | SEARCH
| |
In March 2003, the cast of Lysistrata performed across from the United Nations headquarters to protest the impending invasion of Iraq. The oversized puppets were made by Shannon Harvey. Photo: Emily Davis | |
 |
In winter 2003, the invasion of Iraq was imminent. In response, two New York actresses, Kathryne Blume and Sharron Bower, organized the Lysistrata Project, subtitled "A World-Wide Theatrical Act of Dissent." Largely through person-to-person contact, people all over the world found out about the idea to stage readings, performances, and interpretations of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes. This bawdy antiwar play explores what happens when the women of Greece decide to stop the war by giving up sex. The idea of the project was to get as many productions of the play performed as possible throughout the city and ultimately around the world on March 3. The bolder and bigger, the better.
Our company, Messenger Theatre Company, found out about the project via e-mail and instantly joined in. We had been feeling a growing frustration and helplessness about world events and had been searching for ways to make a difference. We had already created a Punch and Judy–style morality puppet show about war but had found few occasions to perform it. The Lysistrata Project offered us the opportunity to make a larger statement and to become part of an international movement.
Because puppetry is one of our theatrical specialties, we decided to create a large-puppet Lysistrata. Our puppet creator, Shannon Harvey, brainstormed what simple images could best conjure up this war comedy and concluded that because the play focused so bluntly on sexuality, we should employ images that would quickly symbolize man and woman. To that end, the female characters were enormous bright red lips, and the male characters were cannons and rockets. Since we’d not gone for subtlety, we felt we could best tell the story in musical form. I began writing the "Lysistrata Rap," partly inspired by a rock musical version of the play I’d seen as a child.
At a meeting with about 50 other artists in a black box theater at New Dramatists, we learned how to get permits to perform in public spaces and heard advice about what to do if arrested for performing in a public space without one. We dutifully wrote down phone numbers and locations and began determining when and where to perform.
With a crew of around eight actors, we rehearsed once outdoors in Brooklyn and United Nations on the appointed date. Between that chilly rehearsal in Brooklyn and the performance, we lost several actors, including our main character, but others stepped in to replace them, and the final cast—Alex Cutler, Alex Davis, Jenny Deller, Bekka Fink, Laura Fontaine, Steve Moramarco, Brian Stockton, and Brooke Volkert—was ready to improvise.
On March 3, around lunchtime, we gathered at the park and drew a small but curious crowd as we performed. We had a permit—but no appreciable audience.
And then CNN arrived to film the piece and interview the performers. Witnessing this process was one of the most revealing things I’ve ever seen about the media. While filming, the CNN crew got in the actors’ way, stood in obstructive places, and seemed unaware that there was something happening around them. Suddenly it was CNN’s puppet show, with cameras and microphones popping up everywhere and actors trying to sing and operate puppets around them.
I was also taken aback by the interviewing. The reporter seemed to want to show weird people doing a crazy puppet show about sex. And he aggressively pursued his agenda, asking leading and somewhat absurd questions of a young and inexperienced actor but ignoring one of the creators of the piece until she said something inflammatory to get his attention. The questions—"Do you think Laura Bush should withhold sex from the President?" and "Why would withholding sex stop the war?"—seemed to imply that we were attempting to recreate Lysistrata’s story rather than stage it.
After our encounter with CNN, we performed at Grand Central Station—without a permit. We managed to rap a couple of times and were interviewed and filmed by NY1 before being asked to move along. If either network ever aired our puppet show, no one we know saw it, and in the end, few people heard what the play had to say. Nevertheless, we had been a part of an international event. All across the world, artists were expressing their disapproval about the Iraq war. Our dissent didn’t stop the invasion, but at least we made our voices heard in the way that we know best—theatrically.
Emily Davis’s Field Notes column was published in Voices Vol. 30, Fall-Winter 2004. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now.
|
|
Lysistrata Rap, by Emily Davis
Lys-lys-lys—LYSISTRATA!
Lys-lys-lys—LYSISTRATA!
See, the men were fighting,
they were fighting in the wars.
They were gone all the time,
all their boats were gone from shores.
It was Athens versus Sparta
in the land of ancient Greece.
Didn’t have no Magna Carta,
they couldn’t make the peace.
Lysistrata came along
and gathered all the women.
She said, "We can get along
as we sit and do our spinning.
"See, I have this idea,
and I hope that you will follow.
We can stop these wars,
make a peaceful tomorrow.
“Let me ask you this—
are you game, are you willing
to put an end to war,
to put an end to killing?”
The women said, “Yes,
we would lay down our lives.
We have suffered for these men,
we’re their mothers and their wives.”
“Okay,” said Lysistrata,
“Then here’s what we will do.
We will have to abstain
until they pull through.”
“Abstain from what?”
the women cried.
“From food? From dancing?
From eating codfish fried?”
“From sex!” said their leader.
“We’ll give it up no more.
We must make these men remember
who they are fighting for.”
“From sex?” said the women.
“You want me to do what?
No way. No thanks.
I’d rather be shot.”
“Hold on!” said Lysistrata.
“Just think about this.
If each side plays along,
it really cannot miss.
“We’ll tease and touch and pamper them,
we’ll make them want us bad,
then when it comes down to it,
we say, ‘Oh, that’s too bad!
‘We really cannot love
until this war is over.
You’ll have to make some peace
if you want to be my lover.’”
The women said, “I guess she’s right.
We swore we’d do whatever.
I take the oath to start tonight,
no matter what the weather.”
They took over the Acropolis,
they stockpiled all the money.
And when the men showed up in town,
looking for some honey,
The women cried out, “We want Peace!”
They cried out, “Stop the war!
Unless you make some peace,
you’re not getting any more.”
The commissioner yelled,
he kicked and cried and screamed.
They dressed him up in women’s clothes
with makeup, heels, and creams.
He went and told the other men
who came back looking rigid,
“We can’t believe this—
every Grecian woman is frigid!”
They called for Lysistrata
to make the peace.
They were beat, they were licked,
they wanted a piece.
“Lysistrata!” they called,
“We’re ready to talk.
With our cocks in this condition
we can hardly walk!”
“Okay, Athens, okay, Sparta,
shake hands now. We’re all a part
of the same old globe, the same old earth.
Make peace now for all you’re worth.”
So they shook hands
and agreed on the terms.
They divided the lands,
even the worms.
There was dancing and singing
for many long days,
and other stuff, too,
that we can’t really say.
So peace was made
in ancient Greece
when the women united
to make true peace.
Lys-lys-lys—LYSISTRATA!
Lys-lys-lys—LYSISTRATA! Peace!
|
HOME | ABOUT NYFS | PROGRAMS & SERVICES | PUBLICATIONS | RESOURCES | CALENDAR | WHAT’S FOLKLORE? | MEMBERSHIP | GALLERY | SHOP |
SEARCH | CONTACT US
© 2008, 2007-2004 New York Folklore Society
|
