In Aristophanes' comic play, Lysistrata is a daring woman who tries to persuade the women of Greece to withhold sex from their husbands and lovers in order to force them to stop the Peloponnesian War. Fast forward from 411 BC to 2011 AD and meet Lyssie J. (played by Patti Murin) and her cheerleader posse who refuse to "give it up" to their basketball team boyfriends until they get over their "whatever" attitude and win a game. Moral: abstinence makes the hard grow fonder and fonder.
What goes on onstage doesn't stay there. Expect to wave away smoke with your playbill. Expect to have actors in the aisles. I sat so close to Patti Murin when she sang that I got a dental view of her pearly veneers. Expect to be so carried away by the talent--oh, what these actors can do with their bodies, their voices. Expect that you will be so carried away that your gloves will fall out of your pockets, your hat will end up between the seats, and of all things, my theater friend ended up with the shoe of a woman in the row behind us.
Each character is so distinct and each yet represents a type--the left-winger, the closet gay, the sexpot, the dopey and uncommitted that despite themselves end up coming to a higher place.
And the play is larger than a joke. You'll be treated to bits of Whitman's Body Electric, to Emily Dickenson's, I'm Nobody Poem, and Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. Watch out for the hilarious poetry slammer. Listen to the hip hop dialogue that is full of poetic riffs. Poetry and true love rule. And really, is there any difference?