"This is something gigantic and hard—we all must hold tight," Lysistrata warns her girlfriends. Get your mind out of the gutter: She's talking about the Peloponnesian War, of course, and she's about to unveil her own brand of political action—to withhold sex until the men agree to peace.
Ribald, campy, full of drag, laced with nudity—the reading/performance of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Mar. 3 at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, proved that L.A. theatre artists know how to throw a good protest. But just as exciting as the community's anti-war solidarity was the chance to see what 15 L.A. companies can cobble together in a short time when serving the god of cooperation, not competition.
Thanks to the international organizing efforts of New York actors Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower, this was just one of some 998 readings in the world Mar. 3, spread across 59 countries. For this reading, however, serious credit is due producers Gleason Bauer and director Tracy Hudak, who performed a near miracle by channeling the disparate energies of widely diverse companies into an impressively smooth tag-team reading that showed off a collage of satiric approaches.
We saw a cast that members of Circle X, Zoo District, Theatre of NOTE, Classical Theatre Lab, Hunger Artists, Company of Angels, Fabulous Monsters, Quantum Theatre Company, Met Theatre, Nevertheless Radio, Toxic Shock Stage, Longest Lunch, and Crip Chic Productions.
Director Hudak ensured not only that the show kept jogging along but also that each act was just a bit naughtier than the last, so that an evening that began with some not-so-subtle sexual euphemisms, ended up with fighting actors wearing condoms on their heads, and, finally, a orgiastic dance by the Fabulous Monsters in which nude actors rolled atop each other to blaring rave music.
The event kicked off with standard-issue protest speeches and a handful of anemic folk songs, delaying the show for nearly an hour. But when at last the performance started, the bright, bawdy production came as a welcome relief, reminding us why we love theatre so much in the first place: It's wild, it's alive, it's capable of speaking truths—but primarily it's a whole lot of fun.
Out came the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—four men in wildly patterned robes and nun's habits, teetering around on vinyl platforms to deliver an "Invocation" as well as a few jabs. "They ought to do what I do with young Latino men—inspect until they submit," quipped one. Highlights from the production that followed included Circle X and their chorus of "very very old men," balls sagging to their knees, and "just as old women" with withered breasts peeking from the bottom of the shirts. Out trotted Connor Trinneer (Charles "Trip" Tucker from Enterprise) as the evil magistrate—looking an awful lot like Dubya himself—crowned with the head of a large penis.
This particular translation, donated by New York actor/director/playwright Drue Robinson Hagan, was full of freshly updated jokes and clever rhymes. The play itself was a brilliant choice, not just because of its political relevance; while Aristophanes' piece has a noticeably thick, bulging, rock-hard anti-war message, it also happens to read a bit like an episode of Benny Hill—full of naughty innuendo and broad comedy, allowing us a welcome chance to blow off some of the current tension with a nice, long, deeply satisfying release.