Recasting Assembly: Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae and the Politics of Play
Maggie Rothberg, 2020
Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae is a challenge. In staging a radical takeover of the Athenian polis by its citizen women, while simultaneously deconstructing formal strongholds of Greek Old Comedy, this penultimate play in the dramatist’s repertoire flouts convention on every level. It has accordingly provoked fierce debate among critics regarding both its meaning and aesthetic value. This thesis is a multi-prong investigation of the play which includes a research paper and an original translation of the play, written for performance at Wesleyan University in May 2020. In writing “Parabatic Functions and Agonistic Dramaturgy in Ecclesiazusae,” I approached Aristophanes’ Greek text as a classicist, investigating the significance of the play in its original performance context of fourth-century BCE Athens, with particular attention to the ways in which its manipulation of form is constitutive of its politics. In creating the performance text of Assemblywomen, I approached the play as a theater practitioner, with an eye towards investigating its potential resonance as a contemporary theatrical work.