Lysistrata
It’s 2018 and a development project is threatening Vancouver. A company of Bard actresses responds by staging Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ outrageous 411 BC comedy about the first-ever female strike
Lysistrata
by Aristophanes
Bard on the Beach - 2018
Adapted by Jennifer Wise & Lois Anderson
Directed by Lois Anderson
Indigenous Writer and Consultant Quelemia Sparrow
Production photography by Tim Matheson | Costume Designer: Barbara Clayden | Set Designer: Drew Facey | Lighting Designer: John Webber | Composer/Sound Designer/Musical Director: Mishelle Cuttler | Head Voice & Text Coach: Alison Matthews | Choreographer: Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg | Fight Director: Josh Reynolds | Stage Manager: Joanne P.B. Smith | Assistant Stage Manager: Jennifer Stewart | Apprentice Stage Manager: Zoe Bellis | Directing Apprentice: Joel Wirkkunen | Costume Design Apprentice: Hannah Case
The Lysistrata ensemble cast includes Sharon Crandall, Michelle Fisk, Marci T. House, Ming Hudson, Luisa Jojic, JenniferLines, Adele Noronha, Quelemia Sparrow, Colleen Wheeler, Joel D. Montgrand, and Sebastien Archibald.
Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival continues its 29th season with a modern-day riff on Lysistrata, the outrageous 2,400-year-old comedy about the power of citizen action, written by the Greek playwright Aristophanes. First staged in 411 BC, in this adaptation, Aristophanes’ classic tale of the first-ever female strike is staged by a company of Bard actresses in response to a development project that threatens Vanier Park. A bawdy romp, the play investigates how humour and art can take their place in the political arena.
“When it was written in 411 BC it would have been a hilarious scenario for an Athenian audience to witness housewives participating in politics,” explained Anderson. “Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata in the midst of a long, drawn-out war that was ravaging Greece. I was impressed that his action was to respond as an artist; to write a play, to stage a comedic glance at the state of affairs. Citizens were expected to attend the theatre in ancient Athens – it was a place where questions were staged and democracy was put under the lens. The theatre functioned in part as a public forum.” Adds Anderson, “so, here we are in the summer of 2018 in Vancouver, and as we wrangle down this ancient Greek play, we consider our relationship with activism, land and the theatre – today.”
Let’s all just agree to see everything that Lois Anderson directs from now on, okay? Two years ago, her reinvention of Pericles for Bard on the Beach was a revelation. And this year she has brought us a Lysistrata that’s so fresh I feel younger after seeing it. Lysistrata isn’t Shakespeare; it was written by Aristophanes in 411 B.C, and two thousand and twenty-nine years later, it’s still hilarious...
Pool-noodle dicks, toxic masculinity, and a powerful plea for decolonization—these are just some of the things going on in Bard on the Beach’s bold, brilliant, and joyfully bonkers production of Lysistrata. Aristophanes’ 2,400-year-old classic is about Greek women banding together to stop an endless civil war by occupying the treasury and withholding sex from men until peace is established. Jennifer Wise and Lois Anderson’s adaptation is refreshingly contemporary and relevant...
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