So we just wrapped up with production of Lysistrata 1969 at the Capital Fringe Festival. It was a pretty amazing experience considering that I was dressed up as a larger-than-life penis in a play about a sex strike orchestrated by the women of Greece to end the war between Athens and Sparta.
If you're unfamiliar with Lysistrata, it is the oldest comedy that we have record of, written by Aristophanes back about 2700 years ago. It's absolutely amazing that the play has survived so long and is still so incredibly relevant to humanity now.
I have to admit feeling a strange sense of empowerment from wearing that penis costume. I feel like what a woman must feel like at a feminism rally, somehow. And then to have to act out sexual frustration through only facial expression, performing for a few hundred people, what a crazy feeling. You come off stage thinking, "did that really just happen?" The idea that nearly anything I could come up with to do in that costume was just _right_ is so powerful. I had to be careful not to upstage my fellow actors at the wrong moment. I'm sure my phallic presence was understandably distracting for an audience member.
If you're unfamiliar with Lysistrata, it is the oldest comedy that we have record of, written by Aristophanes back about 2700 years ago. It's absolutely amazing that the play has survived so long and is still so incredibly relevant to humanity now.
I have to admit feeling a strange sense of empowerment from wearing that penis costume. I feel like what a woman must feel like at a feminism rally, somehow. And then to have to act out sexual frustration through only facial expression, performing for a few hundred people, what a crazy feeling. You come off stage thinking, "did that really just happen?" The idea that nearly anything I could come up with to do in that costume was just _right_ is so powerful. I had to be careful not to upstage my fellow actors at the wrong moment. I'm sure my phallic presence was understandably distracting for an audience member.
/me is still new.