Aristophanes - Ecclesiazusae (part 3 of 4)

Cast: Diana Rayworth, Margi Campi, Yvonne Dalpra, Roger Sloman, John Halstead, Sean Kelly, Richard Albrecht, Cheryl Campbell.

Editor, Carlo Arcamone; narrator, George Rose; music, Larry Dunn.

directed by Philip Hedley


"A Parliment of Women" or "Women in power" or "Assemblywomen" or Ekklesiazousai ("Ecclesiazusae" is the latinized spelling of that Greek)

Benjamin Bickley Rogers writes:

....the coarsest passages of Aristophanes are mere comic buffoonery, enacted in the open air, not by actors and actresses before a mixed audience of men and women, but by men only before the male population of Athens, no woman being present. They are broad and plain-spoken, but never morbid and seductive, and could not be injurious to anybody, who didnot come to their study with a mind already corrupted and debased.

As regards the observation just made that, at all events in the time of Aristophanes, no women were present at the performance of a comedy....

In every comedy of Aristophanes (with the exception of the Plutus) there are constant appeals to the audience; and frequently, as in Wasps 74-84, particular individuals are singled out for personal satire. Yet nowhere is there the slightest indication of the presence of a woman amongst the spectators. Contrast with this the case of Shakespeare. How rarely does he address the audience! How plain he makes it that women, as well as men, were spectators of his plays!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Aristophanes
• Ecclesiazusae
• Ekklesiazousai
• ancient-greek-comedy
• Assemblywomen
• performing
• arts

[rgaleny]

communism? If everyone owns everything, than no one owns anything. The problem is the insufferably greedy out number the citizens who wish to hold somethings in common for the common good. They ruin this because they want it all the easy way. Their must be a middle way.

[RabiaB]

"So you say the flattest nose in Athens will be able to hold his head up with the Adonis?" - "The pure democratic ideal!"

Love this.

[thesagebrushkid]

This is wonderful.