In the late seventies, en route from Tucson to Key West, I ended up spending 3 nights ( or was it a month?) in a two room jailhouse in Sierra Blanca, Texas for reasons best left to late night fireside discussions. Let us just say that these three gentlemen were, at different times, also arrested in Sierra Blanca.
pic from The Hollywood Reporter
EPISODE ONE
As with all my encounters with being in custody, the outcome was far from the worst possible of many bad options. I wore my own clothes and they let me keep my pocket sized copy of the Dhammapada ( poetic iterations of sayings of the Buddha ). Among the two or three girlie magazines in the cell ( images today found in Victoria's Secret store windows ) there was a boxed book edition of Lysistrata, Aristophanes' bawdy satire about women trying to stop a 20 year long war by withholding sex from the men,. The illustrations for the play were by Picasso. I can't even begin to imagine how it got there, unless it was for illustrations like this.
I went back and forth, reading my book and the play. After a day or so they took away all the reading material, except my Dhammapada, and a day or so later I continued on to The Conch Republic, arriving there on fumes from gas bought with change scraped off the floor. Ah, the good old days!
EPISODE TWO
At the end of the season at Garland's Lodge about 1990, one of the employees created and presented a certificate of award to everyone present at the closing party. They were elaborately decorated, hand written and mostly described each person in a lauditory teasing way. Mine read something to the effect, "For demonstrating that it is OK to laugh about anything in front of anyone at anytime." and was signed "Aristophanes"
EPISODE THREE
In the lead up to invasion of Iraq, I read about The Lysistrata Project organizing a one day presentation of Lysistrata in as many places as possible. I signed on and staged a reader's theater production using a very clever script from The Project, a men's chorus and a women's chorus made up of co-workers at Slates Restaurant in Hallowell, Maine, and projected images suitable for the play by Picasso, Beardsley, and others. Here's a little sample of the kind of images I used. Perhaps obviously, I added the color,
These next two are the oath the women pledge to each other. Women in the audience were encouraged to pledge as well.
The result of the pledge.
Soldiers
The chorus of old men attempt to recapture the Acropolis.
A Happy Ending, peace (piece) at last.
People laughed and we raised some money for Madre, supporting their efforts on behalf on nursing mothers in war zones.
P.S.
On the night of our first rehearsal at my house out of town, one of the group slipped her car off the somewhat steep, definitely slippery driveway. While we were assessing the situation a car stopped on the road and a soldier in uniform came up the driveway to offer help.
EPISODE FOUR
Recently I saw Spike Lee's CHI-RAQ, which is about as fine an update of a classic tale as I have ever experienced. Sometimes you go to the movies and sometimes the movie takes you there. This was one of the latter for me. Instead of 20 years of tribal conflict in Peloponnesus, it's about multigenerational gang fighting in Chicago. Aristophanes style of biting poetic humor is delivered in cadences and rhymes out of rap, with subtitles when necessary. Real tears ( the blow your nose kind ), and belly laughs ( how can I be laughing?) left me in a bit of an emotional puddle by the end, which is probably the correct reaction to the subject.
It also reminded me of the previous three episodes and of the line often attributed to Mark Twain, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."
EPILOGUE
When I spoke to Donald the other day, he told me he'd been thinking about directing a production of the play.
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