The Script

http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/aristophanes/birds.htm

Above is the script for The Birds. It was translated by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC. It's important to have the script, and I prefer mine in Ebook format, because...How else does one research a play without it? Assumedly, anyone working on the play would have read it but just incase I've decided to imput a brief summary of the show.

Pisthetaerus, an Athenian, gets the world's birds to build a new city in the sky. Pisthetaerus wants to gain control over all communications between men and the gods. He gets transformed into a bird-like being and, with the help of the birds, and with the advice of Prometheus, Pisthetaerus soon replaces Zeus as the pre-eminent power in the cosmos.

Images

These are images I found that show us how The Birds can be percieved. The Satyrs above show that the production can be raunchy and adult oriented while the stagin below shows that it can also be taken in another direction, with a more mystical styling.

Our world in the world of the play

             Aristophanes' The Birds can be seen as a "comedy of fantasy", but some scholars see The Birds as a political satire on the imperialistic dreams that led Athenians to undertake their ill-fated expedition in 415 BCE to concur Syrcause in Sicily. Peisthetaerus

"In 431 BC, the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League went to war against the Athenian-led Delian League in what is called the Peloponnesian War.  The two sides agreed to a Fifty-Year Truce in 421 BC that only lasted until 415 BC when the Athenian attack on the Sicilian city of Syracuse provoked the Spartans to recommence the war against Athens."

This war influences Aristophanes' The Birds when Peisthetaerus leads the birds to build a kingdom between heaven and earth. Peisthetaerus disgust reflects that of the Athenians when they went after Syracuse.

Further reading on the war in 415 BCE:

"Syracuse Expedition: 415-413 BC." Then Again. . . Web. 31 Oct. 2010. <http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/mediterranean/Syracuse.html>.

The Fabulist Aristophanes

“…Peisetairos in Birds is simply an ordinary Athenian citizen, weary of the city and its ‘matters’. There is no evidence to suggest that he is particularly poor or belongs to the peasant class. On the contrary, Peisetairos is presented as more educated than the leader of the Chorus of birds because the leader has not “thumbed his Aesop” and Peisetairos has to educate him about the fable of the crested lark. Rothwell has interpreted this as Peisetairos “condescending to speak” to the birds in their own language (that is, the common language of the fable). In fact, Peisetairos is not condescending at all. He flatters the birds by using the fable to argue that birds are even older then the Earth and should be kings. Later in the same play, when Peisetairos is preparing to fly away with Epops, he makes another reference to an Aesopic fable, this time recalling the fable of a fox that fared badly because it made an alliance with an eagle. The story in this case is purely functional – it indicates nothing about the fable-teller’s class or status. It serves as a shorthand way for Peisetairos to summarise his concerns about trying to fly: just as the fox in the fable did not have a happy ending, Peisetairos also fears for his life. As with the fable of the marten cat and mouse in Wasps, this fable must have been well-known because Aristophanes relies on a brief allusion to it.”

In this peer-reviewed journal written by Sonia Pertsinidis; Pertsinidis argues that the theatre of Aristophanes was "Poor-man's theatre", written for the common man and basically a modern day equivalent to pop music or movies. Basically, because Aristophanes uses fables in his plays, calling on folk lore, he is playing to the people with stories and inventions they'd be familiar with. Pertsinidis says that because of his writing involving such tall tales, it indicates that Aristophanes was of the lower class. This is a huge detail because, it would influence how his plays were originally produced, and where they'd have been shown.

Pertsinidis, Sonia. "The Fabulist Aristophanes." Fabula Vol. 50.Issue 3/4 (2005): 208-26. Print.

Current events reflect our past

"A brief survey of the tendencies of thought in higher education today reveals that there is a growing interest in the ancient world, its civilization and its literature, and its realization that modern civilization must inevitably turn back to the culture of the Greeks for its study of man as the measure of the universe...It is fortunate, therefore, that Greek literature has been translated more adequately and more sympathetically than any of the other literatures, except the Bible, that have come to form a part of our cultural tradition."

-Harvey Bruce Densmore

University of Washington

The above caption found in Gilbert Murrays' Ten Greek Plays, is an interesting point when dealing with ancient Greek Theatre. Greek Theatre truly has infiltrated its way into our modern culture and Oedipus Rex and Antigone are even taught in our high school literature classes. All of the greats are recognized and one of them is Aristophanes. Densmore, in his introduction goes on to talk about how current events always reflect our past, and with this idea, it's interesting how ancient Greek drama and comedies can still ring inside a modern audience. The stories are old, but messages are timeless.

Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, Gilbert Murray, Robert Whitelaw, John Hookham Frere, and Daniel K. Sandford. Ten Greek Plays,. New York: Oxford UP, 1929. Print.

OLD COMEDY

Old comedy dates from the establishment of Democracy by Pericles, about 450 B.C.

"In outward form these comedies were the most extravagant of burlesque, in essence they were the most virulent of abuse and personal vilification. In its license of word and gesture, on its audacious directness of invective, no restriction was placed by the dramatist, the audience or the authorities, this license running to an excess that to modern play-goers would seem incredible. The satire and abuse were directed against some object of popular dislike, to whom were not only applied such epithets as coward, fool and knave, but he was represented as saying and doing everything that was contemptible, as suffering everything that was ludicrous and degrading. But this alone would not have won for comedy such recognition as it recognition as it received from the refined and cultured community of the age of Pericles. The comic dramatist who would gain a hearing in Athens must borrow from tragedy all its most attractive features, its choral dances, its masked actors, its metres, its scenery and stage mechanism, and above all the chastened elegance of the Attic language--for this the audience required from the dramatist, as from the lyric poet and the orator. Thus comedy became a recognized branch of the drama, often presenting a brilliant sparkle in dialogue and a poetic beauty in the choral parts not unworthy of the best efforts of the tragic muse. Thus, also, it became a powerful engine in the hands of a skillful and unscrupulous politician."

When dealing with a play written for old comedy, it is important to understand what old comedy is. As described above, Old comedy is very similar to a political cartoon of today. All of the stress and disarray of a society is taken out on political figures whether deserved or not.



"Old Comedy." TheatreHistory.com. Web. 31 Oct. 2010. <http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates002.html>.

Examining a production of "The Birds" at Artswest playhouse & Gallery

I interviewed the stage manager at Artswest Playhouse & Gallery about their previous production of Aristophanes' The Birds. Here's what he had to say about it.

Stage Manager, Ryan Floresca:

"The birds was performed on a thrust, with a square grid tile floor. It was painted with a feather duster to make it marbled while keeping the feathered look. It had two platforms in the audience and the costumes were black based with wings made by the performers. The two leads (Euelpides and Pithetaerus) were in rodeo clown/comedia del arte style and the wings were added halfway through act one. The idea the director used for the chorus sections was to create songs using the chorus as the lyrics."

Cast of The Birds

Nat Zang as the king of the birds & Tyler Webster as Euelpides

Melissa Carter as Pithetaerus & Andi Donnelly as Neptune



As seen with the previous productions, Aristophanes play is incredibly versitile in it's arrangement. The director here chose to use youth actors and to portray the show as a farce.