LYSISTRATA. To 14 January.

London

LYSISTRATA
by Aristophanes translated by Ranjit Bolt

Arcola Theatre 27 Arcola Street E8 To 14 January 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 3pm
Runs 1hr 20min No interval

TICKETS: 020 7503 1646
www.arcolatheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 December

Promising idea for a variant on Christmas shows doesn’t really find its place.
A midwinter sex comedy and a play with a seasonal message of peace on earth. Why isn’t Lysistrata a regular in the Christmas market? Well, it’s about a sex strike, organised by the title character, and as her name suggests, it’s about peace specifically in Greece. Aristophanes, inventor of comic drama, had off-putting aspects, including homophobia and a standing grudge against tragedian Euripides – here his characters accuse the first great writer about women of having a limited, domestic view of their existence.

But his abiding concern, famously on show in this play, was a desire to end the destruction caused by the Greek states’ inter-warring. As if to emphasise how unsteady the emergence of civilisation could be in ancient Greece, the Acropolis is reduced here to a direction sign in Sarah Esdaile’s production, set in the gloomy modern nowhere of an underground car-park.

Having established itself in this modernised location, the production has little sense of how to use it. The same car seems to have multiple uses (though it’s neatly apt the Spartan delegate to Lysistrata’s conference of women should arrive on a bike). And the space becomes neutralised; as a meeting-point between the peace campaigners and the warring men they’re driving into increased sexual frustration, the setting suggests a Deep Throat secrecy alien to the script.

The Chorus of Greek Tragedies has often been successfully reduced to two, or one, in number. But this play needs a range of women, so the individual frustrations at their actions, the temptations to sleep with the enemy, pop up among a seething population. Here, Lysistrata’s sisters each struggles to persist, their individual comedies threatening to supplant the theme.

Various ways have been tried to express male sexual frustration in productions. Something rude’s apt for Aristophanes but the elongated tubes attached to the males here seem absurd. Especially as they have to be held up throughout (call that an erection?), restricting movement possibilities.

The acting is decent enough, but, if a limited cast-size is to work in this play, it needs an environment far more focused than in this misfiring Arcola production.

Lysistrata: Tanya Moodie
Kalonike: Rosanna Lavelle
Murrhina: Leandra Lawrence
Lampito: Laura Elphinstone
Spartan Ambassador/Athenian Soldier: Joseph Attenborough
Magistrate: Jason Morrell
Kinesias/Athenian soldier: Pete McCamley

Director: Sarah Esdaile
Designer: Soutra Gilmour
Lighting: Davis Holmes
Sound: Peter Rice
Music: Simon Slater
Musical Director: Joseph Attenborough
Choreographer: Ann Yee
Assistant director: Andrea Gillie
Associate designer: Simon Kenny
Associate lighting: Richard Howell

2006-01-10 13:38:12