Lysistrata

By: Aristophanes

Narrated by: Marnye Young

Length: 1 hr and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

The Peloponnesian War drags on and on with no end in sight, and the tough-minded Lysistrata has had enough. Men! - always making stupid decisions that affect everyone. Women's opinions are never listened to.

Taking matters into her own hands, Lysistrata convenes a meeting of women from warring city-states across Greece and calls for a sex strike. It's a hard sell, but in the end, it is agreed: They will withhold sex until the war is brought to hasty a close.

Playing their part, too, the old women of Athens seize control of the Acropolis - and with it, the treasury - holing up behind it's barred gates and choking off the silver that funds the interminable war.

It's a waiting game, and a difficult one - some of the women are already becoming desperate for sex and deserting the cause. But Lysistrata is determined to stay the course and soon restores discipline. The men can't hold out forever...can they?

First staged in 411 BC, Lysistrata is the bawdy, comic account of one woman's singular mission to end the Peloponnesian War using the only means that seems available to her in a male-dominated world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2018 Silverton Audio

would be better with a full cast

as fun as her different accents were, it would be better with a full cast

great play, poor recording.

the worst part of this recording is the echo effect of the chorus parts. this made the latter half (majority of Act 2) all but impossible to hear, follow or enjoy.

Funny!!!!

Crude- yes. Classic- yes. Funny- hell yeah. This is clear proof that the Greeks had a great sense of humor and that Aristophanes and his peers deserve more thanks than they receive. The play is for mature audiences as the humor will be lost on those under 18, perhaps even 30. With age this play becomes funnier; and the truths it exposes are as true today as they were then.

It’s good

The narrators were great
It was a little hard to follow
But still good
Give it a listen

Excellent play, mostly good performances.

The play is hilariously alive and fresh for one written 2400+ years ago. I kept remarking on things I couldn't believe Aristophanese wrote. The performances keep it dynamic and mostly enable one to distinguish the different characters, but the chorus sounds weird and metallic, and at times other things sound a bit off. Overall quite good, though.

Amazing Story Performance

Marnye Young brought this tale to life in a beautifully dramatic presentation that had me feeling stageside. Absolutely engaging and entertaining!

Overcooked

Lysistrata happens to be one of my favourite plays. I teach it often, and read it even more often. I have read multiple translations too, but this is the first time I have ever listened to it on audio; it was such an unpleasant experience that I nearly stopped several times.

The problem is in the narration, although quite honestly that had nothing to do with the narrator. Marnye Young has an excellent voice, and she is incredibly adept at changing her voice to play multiple characters convincingly. She also has an impressive number of accents at her disposal. Sounds good doesn't it? Well, the problem is that no matter how strong Young's abilities are, asking one person to voice the entire cast of Lysistrata, including the choruses, is a bit like asking one person to play all eleven positions on a football pitch -- disastrous.

Sadly, the producers of this audio Lysistrata knew that forcing Young to do the work on her own was a bad idea, and they tried to rectify their error with post-production audio fiddling. They add reverb and layer Young's voice, and generally make a hash of all the strophe and anti-strophe. It's embarrassing stuff, and -- for me at least -- all the tinkering made this audio nearly unbearable. Listen at your own peril, my friends.

Weird echo effect makes words hard to understand

The various accents, combined with a strange echo effect, often made the words difficult to understand.