Part Deux, Project #2 Greek Comedy

The Birds by Aristophanes: With the hypocrites (the actors) Jackie P. and Casey M. (That is me!)


To kick off this comedy I will introduce the summary to this whimsical play. Aristophanes had wrote The Birds purely out of entertainment purposes. Unlike his other comedic plays that go by political satires. This one does not, it mostly goes by the fact that why we humans try to become like the gods. It starts out with two middle aged Athenian men Peisthetaerus and Euelpides fulminating about how much they hate paying the taxes and want to live in a world where no one reigns over you. They find it by seeking out the King of "Cloud Cuckoo land" also known as Nephelococcygia asking him if they may be apart of his royal court. Ultimately they become birds, however Peisthetaerus has other plans as he tries to become the most powerful and lead the birds in Nephelococcygia to a better place. He then winds up being the King himself and the birds become the strongest force, and even more so then the gods themselves. Eventually in the end with Peisthetaerus marrying Sovereignty which is a hand maiden to Zeus. There is a wedding and the chorus of Birds come out singing Peisthetaerus's praises. Working with Jackie was a blast, she is very versatile on directing and acting. We actually feed off of each other making the scene more fantastically fun. Why we picked David Barret is because his translation is more comedic and makes a whole lot more sense then the last one I had picked. It also did not have a bunch of words that we could not pronounce either. We have had three practices in all, each time we start out knowing a little more about our character and scene. I play Peisthetaerus the perverted middle aged leader of the birds. While Jackie plays the beautiful goddess of the rainbows Iris. What happens during this scene is that Peisthetaerus has heard news of a god that has slipped through the gate the jackdaws were guarding. When it is apparent that it is just Iris whom he just taunts at. He then tells her to send a message to Zeus that the birds are now the stronger power. In a haughty attitude she flies off saying that her father, Zeus, will destroy him but Peisthetaerus just laughs at her nonsense of Iris's answer. I liked the fact that Jackie kind of molds her outside the angry goddess of the rainbow into one that is sweet and naive. Now, I know one of the questions was if I would ever make this show into a production? The play is funny, complex if you may say because the comedic timing has to be right in order for it to work. Truthfully I would love to do the make up for this production, there is about twenty four species of birds mentioned in this play and I would love to decorate each one of them. However I would not be the director, to me this play seems to not hold my interest at times. The only parts that intrigue my taste would have to be the chorus of birds and Peisthetaerus's boisterous character. If someone does have the time to actually create the mounds of costumes plus the comedic timing for this play then I say go for it!