Give peace your pants USM stages the mother of antiwar theater BY MEGAN GRUMBLING
	Lysistrata By Aristophanes. Adapted by Edward Einhorn. Directed by Ariel Francoeur. Produced the USM Department of Theatre, in Gorham, through February 20. Call (207) 780-5151.

Weary of the War on Terror? Frustrated with the slim results of all the rallies you’ve attended and petitions you’ve signed in the last two years? Imagine the morale of the ancient Greeks during the Peloponnesian War, which went on for 27 years. Twenty-one years into its ravages, Aristophanes penned the risqué comedy that has been the balm of many an antiwar group over the years: Lysistrata, on stage now at USM’s Russell Hall in Gorham.

This classic has been enacted with such marathon frequency since forces first entered Iraq that few are those who haven’t at least heard of its plot. But in case you’ve missed it: In a nutshell, heroine Lysistrata (I. Carlsen) wants to end the war, and so enlists her lady friends to help her in a plan. Despite their own considerable libidos, the women pledge to refrain from putting out until the weapons are put down — or, as a Spartan soldier puts it, barring a treaty, they "let no man inside their warm and squishy place."

Production of a 2000-plus-year-old play involves a lot of difficult directorial questions. Do you go modern to hit home its relevance, or remain traditional, to emphasize the deep history behind the play’s sentiments? Director Ariel Francoeur, a senior at USM, makes some good calls in how she answers. Her decision is to present Lysistrata in what she imagines is close to the theatrical manner of the day, with dance, song, and traditional masks, but the production is also peppered with references to our own age, including fishnets and spike heels accompanying the classical togas.

As Lysistrata, in drag, Carlsen cuts quite a fabulous figure. As he struts in heels, swishes his high-cut, long-tailed tunic, puts hand to and juts an angular hip, he has all the spry pertness of a young Mick Jagger, and it’s a lark just to watch him move about the stage.

Lysistrata’s cohorts in the quest for peace are well distinguished as separate characters. The Spartan woman, Lampito, is formidable blond Michelle Sawyer, tough, statuesque, and well punctuated in speech and movement. As the older woman Calonice, Jill Koufman-Bradbury is a burlesque of stereotypical middle-aged wantonness, and Michele Lee’s Theban woman is the slightly more decorous of the horny ladies. Myrrhina is the young sex-kitten; in Mia Perron’s hands she exudes youth and ingenuousness, but could do with a little sexing up. In one of the cruxes of the play, she makes as if to lie down with her strapping young husband (the very entertaining Nick Cyr), but teases him by contriving a succession of reasons to leave the bed. Cyr’s sexual anguish is a diverting lampoon, but Perron comes off as a little restrained; she needn’t be wary of overplaying her seductiveness, and should let ooze some more of that good juicy eros.

By definition, Lysistrata is a hotbed for just that sort of caricatured sexual spectacle, and this production adheres to the play’s tradition of outfitting its suffering men with amusingly excessive strap-on erections. Several are even designed with the capacity to increase in girth in proportion with the soldiers’ progressively advanced physical ardor, and one boasts a set of — literally! — blue balls. Good fun, that.

But it’s the slightly less obvious spectacle of set, costumes, and light that are particularly impressive in this production. Jodi Ozimek’s costumes are bold and luscious, variations on a theme of white tunic steeped at its base in color, as if these Greeks had waded through seas of blood or purple or blue. They also afford great views of the ladies’ legs, garbed as they are in fishnets, heels, and tall black boots. Charles Kading’s set design is another treat, a cartoonish rendering of the Acropolis in greens and purples, with its pillars curved as if the forces within are about to burst it wide. Its second level allows for many arresting tableaux of the ladies, lounging against pillars and dangling limbs over the ledge. Kudos to the design team of Lysistrata, for the play’s visual elements please the eye like a big bowl of colorful goodies.

On the musical end, we have Angus McFarland’s original score for flute and acoustic guitar, which is generally refreshing for its subtlety. In the chorus scenes, however — when a masked man and woman (nimble Anthony Teixeira and Josieda Lord) engage in a bit of battle-of-the-sexes — the flute matches the sung melody too closely for comfort, and sometimes fights with the lyrics. Still, the simplicity of his composition aligns well with the sensibility of the production — largely traditional in tenor, but tweaked here and there with a twinge of the modern.

That the sentiments of Lysistrata are so easily translated across two millennia is both comforting (we’re not the first population to yearn for peace) and disturbing (have we come no further than this in 2000 years?). It’s this juxtaposition that fuels the long love affair with Lysistrata, and a hard love it is, at that.

Megan Grumbling can be reached at mgrumbling@hotmail.com