Lysistrata Summary Lysistrata is a play that is based around the power that women hold over men off the battlefield and outside of the world of politics. It shows how these women who are tired of losing sons and husbands in battle are able to put up a fight to make them come home from war and stop fighting.
This play starts off when Lysistrata meets with a few other women to share the idea that she has come up with. She tells them about how they need to sustain from having any sex with their husbands, and reluctantly the women agree to carry this out. Both the Spartans and the Athenian women have agreed to do this so that both sides of men will hurry to strike up a treaty between the two of them.
At first, a group of old men hear of how the women have locked themselves in the Acropolis and will not come out.
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Lysistrata Jones @ Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway
Lysistrata Interruptae last performance 178They gather up torches and go to smoke them out. Things end up out of hand, so in comes the magistrate with four policemen. Lysistrata comes out with more women behind her to speak with the men. The two sides engage in a fight and the women are able to beat the men off.
The women and men engage in a very heated argument. Through the course of this argument, Lysistrata explains the goals that they are hoping to achieve by guarding the money that the men use to feed warfare. With this argument, the magistrate retires to go tell other magistrates of what is happening, and the women go back into the Acropolis.
The next morning the men get up and strip down for battle with the women. The leader of the men ends up slapping the leader of the women across the jaw and a slapping argument occurs, each taking turns speaking and then slapping. The fighting soon progresses to everyone removing their tunics and the leader of men choking the leader of women. The leader of women trips the leader of men off of her, and the fight scene comes to an end.
5 days pass and the women are starting to get "anxious"ÃÂ for their men. Even Lysistrata starts to feel the urge of wanting a man. The women start trying to sneak out and make stupid excuses to go home for a minute so that they may have sex with their husband. After calming the women down and influencing them to stay, they all retire back to the Acropolis.
Once again some men show up to talk to the women, asking for kisses and other favors. The women still refuse and will not give anything to the men except threats of violence. One of the women's husbands came walking up to the Acropolis with a slave holding their little boy. He even causes the boy to scream in pain just to try to make the mother come to him. When she does come, she slowly seduces him, and leaves him just like she had been told.
After having their fill of this, the Spartan Herald shows up to strike and agreement with the Athenian men. They decide to split up the land over a statue of a woman, each of the different body parts representing a different land. After the deals are made, the men and women of both sides hold celebrations. That night they are able to again behave as men and their wives. They end the war and come to an agreement in less than one week, all over sex.
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New Acropolis Museum
Acrópolis