Lysistrata

About

Aristophanes' 411 BCE anti-war comedy features the Athenian woman Lysistrata organizing a sex strike across Greece — women from all city-states withhold intimacy from their husbands until the men end the Peloponnesian War. It is the oldest surviving comedy with a female protagonist and one of the most politically brazen plays in the ancient repertoire. Written during the devastating later years of the Peloponnesian War, the play uses its outrageous premise to mount a genuine antiwar argument dressed in bawdy farce. It has been produced in almost every major war of the twentieth century as protest theater. Its ribald humor travels surprisingly well across millennia, making it one of the most accessible of the Greek comedies.