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The Common Chorus: A Version of Aristophanes' Lysistrata
The Common Chorus is set at Greenham in the days when the Women's Peace Camp was at its most active. The Greenham Women play for the edification of the missile-base guards the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, a play about war and peace, and the relationship between the sexes. The Women’s sense of nuclear extinction makes them feel responsible for the past and the future, which gives the play a sense of movement from modern Britain to Ancient Greece and back again. This volume contains an introduction by Tony Harrison. (from the back cover)
87 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 1992
4 people want to read
About the author
Tony Harrison
112 books37 followersSee http://www.contemporarywriters.com/au...
He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He was born in Leeds, England in 1937 and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics.
He became the first Northern Arts Literary Fellow (1967-8), a post that he held again in 1976-7, and he was resident dramatist at the National Theatre (1977-8). His work there included adaptations of Molière's The Misanthrope and Racine's Phaedra Britannica.
His first collection of poems, The Loiners (1970), was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1972, and his acclaimed version of Aeschylus's The Oresteia (1981) won him the first European Poetry Translation Prize in 1983. The The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992) won the Whitbread Poetry Award.
His adaptation of the English Medieval Mystery Plays cycle was first performed at the National Theatre in 1985. Many of his plays have been staged away from conventional auditoria: The Trackers of Oxyrhyncus was premièred at the ancient stadium at Delphi in 1988; Poetry or Bust was first performed at Salts Mill, Saltaire in Yorkshire in 1993; The Kaisers of Carnuntum premiered at the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum in Austria; and The Labours of Herakles was performed on the site of the new theatre at Delphi in Greece in 1995. His translation of Victor Hugo's The Prince's Play was performed at the National Theatre in 1996.
His films using verse narrative include v, about vandalism, broadcast by Channel 4 television in 1987 and winner of a Royal Television Society Award; Black Daisies for the Bride, winner of the Prix Italia in 1994; and The Blasphemers' Banquet, screened by the BBC in 1989, an attack on censorship inspired by the Salman Rushdie affair. He co-directed A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan for Channel 4 in 1994 and directed, wrote and narrated The Shadow of Hiroshima, screened by Channel 4 in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atom bomb. The published text, The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/Poems (1995), won the Heinemann Award in 1996. He wrote and directed his first feature film Prometheus in 1998. In 1995 he was commissioned by The Guardian newspaper to visit Bosnia and write poems about the war.
His most recent collection of poetry is Under the Clock (2005), and his Collected Poems, and Collected Film Poetry, were published in 2007.
He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He was born in Leeds, England in 1937 and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics.
He became the first Northern Arts Literary Fellow (1967-8), a post that he held again in 1976-7, and he was resident dramatist at the National Theatre (1977-8). His work there included adaptations of Molière's The Misanthrope and Racine's Phaedra Britannica.
His first collection of poems, The Loiners (1970), was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1972, and his acclaimed version of Aeschylus's The Oresteia (1981) won him the first European Poetry Translation Prize in 1983. The The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992) won the Whitbread Poetry Award.
His adaptation of the English Medieval Mystery Plays cycle was first performed at the National Theatre in 1985. Many of his plays have been staged away from conventional auditoria: The Trackers of Oxyrhyncus was premièred at the ancient stadium at Delphi in 1988; Poetry or Bust was first performed at Salts Mill, Saltaire in Yorkshire in 1993; The Kaisers of Carnuntum premiered at the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum in Austria; and The Labours of Herakles was performed on the site of the new theatre at Delphi in Greece in 1995. His translation of Victor Hugo's The Prince's Play was performed at the National Theatre in 1996.
His films using verse narrative include v, about vandalism, broadcast by Channel 4 television in 1987 and winner of a Royal Television Society Award; Black Daisies for the Bride, winner of the Prix Italia in 1994; and The Blasphemers' Banquet, screened by the BBC in 1989, an attack on censorship inspired by the Salman Rushdie affair. He co-directed A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan for Channel 4 in 1994 and directed, wrote and narrated The Shadow of Hiroshima, screened by Channel 4 in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atom bomb. The published text, The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/Poems (1995), won the Heinemann Award in 1996. He wrote and directed his first feature film Prometheus in 1998. In 1995 he was commissioned by The Guardian newspaper to visit Bosnia and write poems about the war.
His most recent collection of poetry is Under the Clock (2005), and his Collected Poems, and Collected Film Poetry, were published in 2007.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 22, 2020
As Harrison notes in his introduction, this is very much an adaptation for a specific time--the late Cold War, where nuclear war was seen as an imminent threat. This play is set in the Greenham Women's Peace Camp, which was an ongoing protest against the US storage of nuclear weapons in Britain as part of the broader anti-nuclear weapons movement. Harrison adapts Aristophanes' anti-war comedy Lysistrata to the anti-nuclear protests, keeping many of the same elements, but setting it in the international conflict between the US and USSR.
But the really interesting thing this play does is collapses the distinction between 411 BCE (when Aristophanes' play was first performed) and the late 1980s (when Harrison's play is set). The Peace women "perform" a version of Lysistrata outside the camp gates, but it isn't clear whether this is exclusively a performance of the ancient play or whether this is supposed to be a contemporary sex strike inspired by Lysistrata. The character named Lysistrata--who also refers to herself by the actor's own name, whichever actor is playing the role--actually has a lengthy speech where she explains that since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the distinction between history and the present has collapsed under the weight of the nuclear age's destructive potential. Because history exists solely through memory (even history books and monuments are meaningless without our ability to interpret them), if the human race is destroyed then with it goes everything we've ever achieved. In other words, human beings are responsible for the entirety of history because we are the containers and interpreters of memory, so nuclear war would annihilate not just humanity's present but its entire past as well.
https://youtu.be/X9APuzKJ-wc
But the really interesting thing this play does is collapses the distinction between 411 BCE (when Aristophanes' play was first performed) and the late 1980s (when Harrison's play is set). The Peace women "perform" a version of Lysistrata outside the camp gates, but it isn't clear whether this is exclusively a performance of the ancient play or whether this is supposed to be a contemporary sex strike inspired by Lysistrata. The character named Lysistrata--who also refers to herself by the actor's own name, whichever actor is playing the role--actually has a lengthy speech where she explains that since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the distinction between history and the present has collapsed under the weight of the nuclear age's destructive potential. Because history exists solely through memory (even history books and monuments are meaningless without our ability to interpret them), if the human race is destroyed then with it goes everything we've ever achieved. In other words, human beings are responsible for the entirety of history because we are the containers and interpreters of memory, so nuclear war would annihilate not just humanity's present but its entire past as well.
https://youtu.be/X9APuzKJ-wc
Displaying 1 of 1 review