Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
“Lysistrata” is a story about women who spoke out against the situation of their time and backed up their words with deeds. A fantastic story for Ancient Greece, when women not only decided to intervene in state affairs, but also proposed a program of social transformation and achieved stunning success in this.
After 75 years, the only professional Jewish theater in the country for all nationalities returned to the center of the capital, opening its second venue this winter at 23 Novoslobodskaya Street. As a basis for the first premiere in the new building, Shalom’s artistic director, director Oleg Lipovetsky, chose the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, one of the most famous ancient authors whose works have survived to this day. We tell you what came of it.
Antiquity is a synonym for eternity
It is known that the ancient Greeks loved comedy and tragedy equally. Playwrights competed at the festivities in honor of Dionysus, showing the public the passions and twists of various plots. In comedies, buffoonery, obscenities and masks became the expression of acute social issues, allowing authors to express themselves in a satirical form, polemicizing with opponents – poets, politicians, philosophers. Aristophanes himself mercilessly ridiculed the public figure Cleon, whom his contemporaries suspected of corruption and theft, carrying out the feud with him through such works as “The Riders” and “The Babylonians”. And in “Clouds” the playwright mercilessly went over the teachings of the sophists, popular at that time. At the same time, comedy was supposed to entertain and distract the public from pressing problems, and therefore brought laughter and joy specific to its time. According to Oleg Lipovetsky, a person’s heart opens when he laughs, and if his heart is open, you can talk to him about serious things. This form of presentation remains relevant to this day.
Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata during the protracted Peloponnesian War, when the Athenians were suffering from defeats in battle and misfortunes that had befallen the city. Ancient Greece was fragmented, the city-states formed coalitions and fought desperately among themselves. The peaceful inhabitants were struggling with hunger, their souls and bodies demanded circuses and bread. Then Aristophanes decided to invent a heroine who would change the course of history, at least in his imagination.
Women’s revolt in ancient Greek
Exhausted and enraged by the endless civil strife, Lysistrata gathers representatives of other cities for a women’s council to convince them of the need to take radical measures in the name of saving Greece: to refuse any intimacy with their chosen ones until they stop the bloodshed and return home in peace. Here one could reproach the comedy writer for manipulating basic instincts, but the ancient Greeks were not only not embarrassed by such details, but also encouraged them in every possible way, including detailed visual embodiments through props on the stage.
Oleg Lipovetsky’s stage version culturally reworks Aristophanes’ plot, repeating and developing it. Here the beautiful Biotinians, Corinthians, Milesians and Thebans gather at the call of the Athenian Lysistrata, here they almost faint from her daring proposal, and here, following the mighty Spartan, they agree to support the uprising. Here it is necessary to note the brilliant performance of Yevgeny Ovchinnikov, who embodies the athlete Lampito, and the eloquent homage to the ancient Greek theater, where all roles, including female ones, were played by men.
Then the comedy plays out like clockwork: in one corner of the ring there is a group of enraged and at the same time confused men in military uniform with a touch of Greek cyberpunk, in the other – gorgeous young ladies, stubbornly determined to hold the Acropolis at any cost. Their eclectic attire also refers to famous dystopias, eloquently hinting at the true timelessness of what is happening. Male and female collide like fire and water, and this battle of the elements shakes the rectangular space of the stage, supported by antique columns. The action, however, is not limited to these limits, boldly moving to the upper tiers of the hall, taking the heroes to the side benches and encouraging them to interact with the audience: at any moment the viewer can be asked about his health and asked for a glass of water for those in need. Thus, the director, as usual, gets rid of the fourth wall in the theatre, and this technique works without fail, involving the viewer even more in what is happening.
“The Distaff of the Union” as a Powerful Symbol of Creation
Aristophanes speaks of creation, and Elizaveta Potapova’s Lysistrata echoes him, calling for weaving a single canvas of peaceful coexistence from all the cities. Each character has individual traits, liveliness and depth thanks to the fine work of the actors, who create multi-layered images even in secondary roles, filigree playing out witty inserts-sketches that expand the action, but it is the main character who reveals her motivation most fully. Oleg Lipovetsky adds a detail to his version that makes the heart ache: at the peak of the farcical game, after an important scene at a meeting of politicians, where women have come to express their point of view, and the subsequent musical suffering for loved ones, there is suddenly silence. And in this silence appears little Lysistrata, together with her adult version, heartfeltly telling the backstory of the character. The reception against the background of the fast, energetic rhythm of the performance sounds deafening.
There is no difference between the long past and the distant future, there is no greater thirst for man than the desire to live. In the play’s program, the compilers provide a brief historical background on other similar strikes, when women acted in a similar way to achieve social, political and cultural changes. The results are impressive!
And who are the judges?
There is an interesting character in the play, played by Sergei Shadrin. “Everything should work for the story, I work for it,” the actor emphasizes. The chorus, also a referee, also a mediator, also a celestial being in the literal and figurative sense, since it wears a gilded crown on its head, lives mainly on the upper tier of the hall and comes on stage only for short but bright performances (as was the case, for example, with the song “Call me, call” in the film “Carnival”). There are quite a few allusions from different areas of art here, which will be interesting for an attentive viewer. This helps to connect even more emotionally to the process through a cultural code that finds expression in recognizable references.
The chorus does not simply direct the action, reworking the classical structure of the composition of ancient Greek comedy and intentionally preserving only certain parts of it so that modern audiences are more accustomed to watching. It asks important questions at the right time and supports the characters in the difficult task of finding a common language, becoming a meta-figure that does not condemn everyone else, but understands, accepts and reconciles. A higher power that gives meaning to what is happening.
Oleg Lipovetsky said this about his play “My God!”: “There is a phrase there: “Believing is so painful that religion is like a pearl.” Do you know how a pearl is made? A grain of sand gets into a mollusk, and it envelops it because it hurts. It’s the same here: theater cannot exist without form, without the packaging in which we present these thoughts. Content is metal, and the form in which we forge the metal, the edge, is already form, it is theater.” In the play “Lysistrata,” the content is love, and its form only needs room for a step forward.
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