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.

Aristophanes

-Aristophanes is an Athenian comedic playwright with eleven surviving comedies:

• The Acharnians
• The Knights
• The Clouds
• The Peace
• The Wasps
• The Birds
• The Frogs
• Plutus
• Lysistrata
• Ecclesiazusae
• Thesmophoriazusae

 

They represent the Old Comedy, combining personal attacks, obscenities, parodies, songs, and hymns with ideas on poetry, politics, religion, and the sexes. In Aristophanes’ The Clouds, Socrates is ridiculed and Euripides is poked at in others. The Old Comedy is fast paced humor that is the standing block for satire and farce today. In keeping with tradition, Aristophanes’ The Birds is a fantasy about escape from war. Aristophanes' influence on English drama can be seen in Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, and especially Henry Fielding. Robert Browning's poem Aristophanes' Apology has the dramatist defend the naturalness of comedy.

"Aristophanes." Web. <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t113.e341&srn=8&ssid=600446288#FIRSTHIT>.

Videos of past productions of the Birds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h59azdY2Bw8
- Municipal Regional Theater of Kalamata. Direction: Yiannis Kakleas; 1992

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31X4t4E4Quo
- Masque Youth Theatre. 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQpKFo6auQ0&feature=related
- CSM and London Sudio dance collaboration

To follow-up on our exploration of Aristophanes The Birds, the above video clips are from productions of The Birds. They show abstract productions that take the text of Aristophanes and produce something very unique from each other. I found it very interesting how vastly different each of these productions were. Example, the first clip from the Municipal Regional theatre has very stunning imagery which shocks you and doesn't seem very comedic to me at all; whereas the CSM and London dance collaboration moves me but in a different way than that. Typically The Birds is considered an old comedy but the productions I've found really strive to make bold, fantastical statements.

Off-Broadway Cast of the Birds

Original Off-Broadway Cast - 1983
The Greek Theater of New York At 120 West 28th Street

THE BIRDS
by Aristophanes
translation by Walter Kerr; directed by Russ Fast
set and costume design by Stephen Weagle; lighting design by Trevor Odell
original music composed and arranged by Evangelos Fampas
original lyrics and vocal direction by Jon Neil-Harris
stage manager: Ellen Feldman

Pithetaerus
Yannis Simonides Epops

Poseidon
Alexis Mylonas Procne, Julia Kiley Iris

Demetra Karras Koryphaios
Jon Neil-Harris

Euelpides
Russ Fast

Prometheus and Prophet
Ahvi Spindell Barbarian

God and Real Estate Man
Randall Wright

Messenger No.1
Paul Spirelis Lawyer, Julie Ziavras

Messenger No.2
Maxon Gee

Chorus
Elaine Psihountas; Mala Maria; Barbara Varveris

Priestess Bird
Kathi Gati Butler

Bird and Herald
Stephen Weagle

Heracles
Chris Koronios

Poet
Kevin Rodgers

In examining a work of Greek Tragedy and/or any other theatrical piece, it is important to research and discover previous productions to see what others have done with the material gifted to us from the writers. This is true for all staged productions but, I believe it is even more so important to research and learn about the Ancient Greek works simply because of the age gap between now and then. It is important to take note of the world the play was written in because all theatre is a reflection of its time. Once you've learned what you need to know of the period, than you can make an informed opinion of how to stage and conceptualize your own production.

One of the ways to start off on this learning adventure is to look at the casts of previous productions. Because we are exploring Aristophanes The Birds, there have been literally hundreds of productions of it throughout time and I thought it best to work with an Off-Broadway cast to explore casting choices and to see what kind of production they put on.

"STAGE - 'THE BIRDS' BY ARISTOPHANES - Review - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 02 June 1983. Web. 31 Oct. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/02/theater/stage-the-birds-by-aristophanes.html>.