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Praxagora disguises herself and organizes Athenian women to take over the assembly. Once in power, they abolish private property and establish communal living, while rules requiring men to sleep first with older women lead to comic conflicts over a young couple.
Two disillusioned men persuade the birds to build a fortified city in the clouds, where Loyal Friend seeks power. Prometheus warns them against challenging the gods, but the birds defy Zeus and their citadel is destroyed by a storm. Good Hope, moved by his encounter with the Nightingale, returns to the human city.
Judge Dandin, forced into retirement, is obsessed with holding trials and turns his home into a courtroom where servants and even animals plead and are convicted. His son Léandre is in love with Isabelle, daughter of the lawsuit-obsessed Chicanneau.
Lysistrata persuades women from the warring Greek city-states to withhold sex and occupy Athens's Acropolis until the men negotiate peace. After the women's action exposes the costs of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian and Spartan delegates agree to terms and the conflict ends.
Trygaeus flies to the gods on a dung beetle and, with Greeks' help, frees Peace from War's imprisonment. The return of peace revives rural life, while the comic ending celebrates Trygaeus's marriage to Harvest and exposes the trades and leaders invested in war.
Athenian Chremylos brings home the blind personification of Wealth and seeks to restore his sight so wealth will go to the virtuous; Poverty argues against the change, whose consequences disrupt human and divine society.
A three-act drama follows Socrates from a comic portrayal of his influence on Strepsiades and his son, through his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, to his refusal to escape before execution. Audience members may serve as jurors and vote.
Dikaiopolis, weary of the Peloponnesian War, obtains a private peace treaty with Sparta through Amphitheus. The old men of Acharnae oppose him, but he argues that profiteers and political leaders perpetuate the war. He establishes a private market where he trades with Athens' enemies, while the warlike general Lamachus is summoned to battle and returns injured; Dikaiopolis returns from a feast celebrating peace.
Two Athenians, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, leave Athens and persuade the birds to build a fortified city in the sky, Cloudcuckooland. The new city redirects sacrifices from the Olympian gods and attracts a succession of visitors; Pisthetaerus defeats or dismisses them, negotiates with Zeus's delegation, and is proclaimed ruler of the heavens.
To escape household debts, farmer Strepsiades enrolls in Socrates's Thinkery to learn persuasive argument, then sends his son Pheidippides when he proves unable to learn. After Pheidippides returns transformed and beats his father, Strepsiades attacks the school.
A German comic opera based on a play by Aristophanes. The available record does not identify the specific source play or provide a plot synopsis.
Dionysus descends to the underworld with his slave Xanthias to bring Euripides back to Athens. At Pluto's palace he judges a contest between Euripides and Aeschylus over the greatest tragic poet, then chooses Aeschylus to return and advise the city during the Peloponnesian War.
A sausage seller challenges the demagogue Cleon for the favor of Demos, a personification of the Athenian people. After competing in boasts, political claims, and acts of flattery, the seller wins and restores Demos to his former glory.
Bdelycleon tries to break his father Philocleon’s addiction to serving on juries, trapping him at home and debating the value of jury service. When argument fails, he stages a trial at home, where Philocleon mistakenly acquits a dog. Bdelycleon takes his father to a dinner party, but Philocleon gets drunk and causes trouble; the play ends with him competing in a dance against the sons of Carcinus.
Euripides fears the women gathered at the Thesmophoria will punish him for his plays’ portrayals of women. He sends his elderly in-law Mnesilochus, disguised as a woman, to spy on them; when the women expose and arrest him, Euripides tries several theatrical disguises and plots before negotiating with the chorus and arranging Mnesilochus’s escape.
Praxagora disguises herself and organizes Athenian women to take over the assembly. Once in power, they abolish private property and establish communal living, while rules requiring men to sleep first with older women lead to comic conflicts over a young couple.
Two disillusioned men persuade the birds to build a fortified city in the clouds, where Loyal Friend seeks power. Prometheus warns them against challenging the gods, but the birds defy Zeus and their citadel is destroyed by a storm. Good Hope, moved by his encounter with the Nightingale, returns to the human city.
Judge Dandin, forced into retirement, is obsessed with holding trials and turns his home into a courtroom where servants and even animals plead and are convicted. His son Léandre is in love with Isabelle, daughter of the lawsuit-obsessed Chicanneau.
Lysistrata persuades women from the warring Greek city-states to withhold sex and occupy Athens's Acropolis until the men negotiate peace. After the women's action exposes the costs of the Peloponnesian War, Athenian and Spartan delegates agree to terms and the conflict ends.
Trygaeus flies to the gods on a dung beetle and, with Greeks' help, frees Peace from War's imprisonment. The return of peace revives rural life, while the comic ending celebrates Trygaeus's marriage to Harvest and exposes the trades and leaders invested in war.
Athenian Chremylos brings home the blind personification of Wealth and seeks to restore his sight so wealth will go to the virtuous; Poverty argues against the change, whose consequences disrupt human and divine society.
A three-act drama follows Socrates from a comic portrayal of his influence on Strepsiades and his son, through his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, to his refusal to escape before execution. Audience members may serve as jurors and vote.
Dikaiopolis, weary of the Peloponnesian War, obtains a private peace treaty with Sparta through Amphitheus. The old men of Acharnae oppose him, but he argues that profiteers and political leaders perpetuate the war. He establishes a private market where he trades with Athens' enemies, while the warlike general Lamachus is summoned to battle and returns injured; Dikaiopolis returns from a feast celebrating peace.
Two Athenians, Pisthetaerus and Euelpides, leave Athens and persuade the birds to build a fortified city in the sky, Cloudcuckooland. The new city redirects sacrifices from the Olympian gods and attracts a succession of visitors; Pisthetaerus defeats or dismisses them, negotiates with Zeus's delegation, and is proclaimed ruler of the heavens.
To escape household debts, farmer Strepsiades enrolls in Socrates's Thinkery to learn persuasive argument, then sends his son Pheidippides when he proves unable to learn. After Pheidippides returns transformed and beats his father, Strepsiades attacks the school.
A German comic opera based on a play by Aristophanes. The available record does not identify the specific source play or provide a plot synopsis.
Dionysus descends to the underworld with his slave Xanthias to bring Euripides back to Athens. At Pluto's palace he judges a contest between Euripides and Aeschylus over the greatest tragic poet, then chooses Aeschylus to return and advise the city during the Peloponnesian War.
A sausage seller challenges the demagogue Cleon for the favor of Demos, a personification of the Athenian people. After competing in boasts, political claims, and acts of flattery, the seller wins and restores Demos to his former glory.
Bdelycleon tries to break his father Philocleon’s addiction to serving on juries, trapping him at home and debating the value of jury service. When argument fails, he stages a trial at home, where Philocleon mistakenly acquits a dog. Bdelycleon takes his father to a dinner party, but Philocleon gets drunk and causes trouble; the play ends with him competing in a dance against the sons of Carcinus.
Euripides fears the women gathered at the Thesmophoria will punish him for his plays’ portrayals of women. He sends his elderly in-law Mnesilochus, disguised as a woman, to spy on them; when the women expose and arrest him, Euripides tries several theatrical disguises and plots before negotiating with the chorus and arranging Mnesilochus’s escape.