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“Lysistrata” w/ Lucy Lawless, Emily Perkins, Erica Spyres, Bill Youmans & Aaron David Gleason

April 16, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/partiallyexaminedlife/PEL_Players_Lysistrata_3-19-18.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:22:32 — 75.6MB)

Lysistrata
The PEL Players return to perform Aristophanes's comedy (first performed in 411 BCE) about using a sex strike to stop war, using Jeffrey Henderson's 1988 translation.

Mark (old men's chorus leader), Wes (old men's chorus and Athenian), Dylan (old men's chorus), and Seth (Spartan sentry) are joined once again by TV's Lucy Lawless (Xena Warrior Princess, Ash vs. Evil Dead, Spartacus, Battlestar Galactica, etc.) as Lysistrata and Broadway's Bill Youmans (hear his past performance for us of Crito) as the Athenian magistrate and Athenian ambassador. Plus, new fan Emily Perkins (she was the girl in the TV mini-series of Stephen King's It and starred in the Ginger Snaps movies) as the young Athenian wife Myrrhine as well as the Spartan Lampito and several other small old- and young-woman parts. (The young women are holding the sex strike while the old women have taken over the treasury in the Citadel of Athena to stop funds from going to the war.) Bill brought along his fellow cast member in the current Broadway production of Carousel, Erica Spyres, to play Lysistrata's co-conspirator Calonice, the old women's chorus leader, and other parts. Finally, actor/musician Aaron David Gleason (also featured on the Nakedly Examined Music podcast, episode 71) joined in to play the young Athenian soldier Rodney Balling (husband of Myrrhine) as well as the Spartan ambassador (who sings!) and joined the old man's chorus.

We start out by giving a bit of historical context and explaining some of the weird conventions of the play, then give a "cold read" of the full script (meaning this was not rehearsed, though the result has been edited to smooth things out and add some sound effects and a little music), then talk for another ten minutes after we're done about what we just read. Is this the feminist tract that history presents it as?

This was performed via remote conference call. Each participant recorded him- or herself locally, which explains the difference in sound quality among participants, but I've done my best to smooth everything out. The giggling and a few actual scene-breaking comments were carefully left in, though, to help convey how damn fun this was. Henderson's translation uses a modern idiom (so this doesn't sound like Shakespeare, which would be just as remote from the original Greek as what you're hearing here), and presents the Spartan foreigners as having Russian accents.

We'll be releasing as Partially Examined Life episode 188 a full discussion of the play, bringing back Lucy and Emily as guests to help us work out the relation between feminine power (and sex) and politics both for the Ancient Greeks and for us now. What does it really mean to say "make love not war," and does the increasing presence of female political leaders portend any changes of the sort that Charlotte Perkins Gilman predicted?

We're pleased to bring you this performance without commercial interruptions. Why not respond in loving kind by tipping some pennies into the hat?

If you enjoy this, check out our past PEL Players productions: Antigone (feat. Lucy Lawless and Paul Provenza), No Exit (feat. Lucy and Jaime Murray), and (if you're desperate) Plato's Gorgias (feat. no real actors whatsoever).

Lysistrata image by Solomon Grundy. You can still get our 2017 wall calendar of his art at partiallyexaminedlife.com/calendar.

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Filed Under: Podcast Episodes Tagged With: Ancient Greek theater, Aristophanes, audioplay, comedy, lucy lawless, Lysistrata, philosophy podcast

Comments

  1. SUNG LEE says

    April 16, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    I’ve been listening to your podcasts a while now through apple podcasts, but this play you’re doing sounds so much fun that I had to join as a citizen. Keep up the good work.

    Reply
    • Wes Alwan says

      April 16, 2018 at 5:04 pm

      Thank you Sung Lee!

      Reply
  2. Jessica says

    April 17, 2018 at 11:47 am

    This was wonderful and SO fun to listen to!! Now I have to go back and find some prior performances to enjoy!!

    Reply
  3. Robin Morris says

    April 21, 2018 at 3:58 pm

    Fascinating and funny!

    Reply
  4. Tobiloba says

    May 21, 2018 at 12:45 am

    This was an amazing performance especially since it was a cold read. Seth’s/the spartan sentry part was too hilarious!!!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Actress Lucy Lawless Performs the Proto-Feminist Comedy "Lysistrata" for The Partially Examined Life Podcast | ✅ Download punk music albums for free ⭐ PunkMusic.net says:
    January 9, 2019 at 10:05 pm

    […] Antigone, and most recently Aristophanes’s still-funny proto-feminist comedy Lysistrata. For the discussion of this last, she was joined by fellow cast member Emily Perkins (she played […]

    Reply
  2. PMP#67: Borat Pod Show! Very Nice! With Aaron David Gleason says:
    November 4, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    […] Music #71. Listen to Aaron, Erica, Mark, and others including Lucy Lawless and Emily Perkins on the Partially Examined Life Players’ reading of Lysistrata. Learn more about Aaron at aarondavidgleason.com, and you can follow him on Instagram […]

    Reply
  3. PMP#107: Cult Bands and Cultish Fans says:
    October 13, 2021 at 7:14 pm

    […] songs on Nakedly Examined Music, on Pretty Much Pop last year (talking about Borat), and as part of a Partially Examined Life audioplay (also featuring PMP favorite Erica Spyres and cult actress Lucy Lawless). Listen to the song he […]

    Reply

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