The Connecticut Repertory Theatre put on a series of productions throughout the school year. One of the plays, Lysistrata, opened at the beginning of this month at the Nafe Katter Theater. I had to be an usher and go see it for on of my classes (plus the promise of extra credit didn’t hurt either).
They play is about women withholding sex from their husbands until the war is over. The Greek playwright Aristophanes in 411 B.C.E wrote the play. The Peloponnesian War, a conflict between the two main Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta, inspired it.
In this new adaptation, Jen Wineman, the director, set it in the 1940’s in a small town. Lysistrata is the leader of the women that take over city’s treasury. She convinces them that a sex boycott would cause their men to choose to end the war and also end their pain and suffering.
This play is hilarious. I couldn’t keep a straight face the entire play! This play was clearly not recommended for children because of the sex talk and some of the more…visual props. My favorite scene was when after the women declared a sex strike, every single man that came on stage had a fake boner. My 3 TA’s for this class are graduate students and were in the play. It took me a week before I could go to lecture and look at them without laughing.
Overall the play was very enjoyable the audience and myself couldn’t stop dying of laughter. I give it 5 gold stars!