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How To Warm Up Before A Soccer / Football Game - Download a FREE soccer training course at - http://www.progressivesoccertraining.com Learn how to warm up be...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyu8Iaj52dc

Some great links for examples stretches!

#soccer #stretches #movement

The Reality of High School Soccer

Soccer is an incredibly popular sport for high school or middle school aged girls. A survey by the National Federation of High School Associations found that from 2008 to 2019, the United States saw a 14.4% increase in girls under 18 participating in soccer (Cook). Their options for playing soccer are numerous; high school teams, club, indoor and outdoor, all ages, travel team, and some girls play in multiple ways. So, what is the draw for all these young women to join this sport?

For some, it is the community and social links built by team sports. The connection among a sports team is strengthened by virtue of the requirements of the sport. Communication is key to establishing a good team, whether this mean pre-game locker room talk, on field nonverbal signals, or outside of the game conversations. In terms of friendships, the bond created among girls in soccer comes with a pre-established connection: the game. Friendships linked by the common denominator of the team can feel easier because “you’ll always have something to talk about and remember the good old days in the dressing room or on the playing field” (Rosario).

The benefits of soccer can also stretch into the academic sphere. In looking at the numbers alone, “the average GPA of a high school athlete was 2.84, while a student who was not involved in athletics had an average GPA of 2.68” (Chen). Team sports give teens a better sense of accountability to their education, as well as their team. Students involved in team sports also tend to miss, on average, 1.5 days less in a school year than students who do not play (Chen). Overall soccer endorses the values of persistence, teamwork, and practice to students which all result in better academic performance.

However, there can be drawbacks to choosing a life of soccer as a high schooler. Emotionally, the competitive ‘need to win’ can be detrimental to teen girls. Soccer teams, club teams especially, can put an immense amount of pressure on their players to perform. Outside of that, the requirements for time and energy for club soccer can be intense on both teens and parents. These requirements include, “driving regularly to and from distant games, giving over sacred weekends to a child’s pursuit, and dividing up the family to deposit different kids at separate venues” (Flanagan). For parents, this is time consuming, exhausting, and bad for the child-parent dynamic. For the girls, this time given to their teams can mean increased stress, loss of down time, and loss of other opportunities, such as plays, academic enrichment opportunities, or time with other social circles. Outside of the emotional and mental issues, injuries are another major worry for girls playing soccer. For example, “knee injuries, including ACL tears, are nearly four times more likely to bedevil female soccer players than male” (Flanagan). Soccer players are also at risk for concussions, overuse injuries, and sprained ankles. All these factors must be weighed with the positives when looking at joining a soccer team.

Chen, Grace. “10 Reasons Why High School Sports Benefit Students.” Public School Review, 19 Nov. 2019, www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/10-reasons-why-high-school-sports-benefit-students.

Cook, Bob. “Examining the Decade-Long Trends in High School Sports Participation.” Forbes, 31 Aug. 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/08/31/examining-the-decade-long-trends-in-high-school-sports-participation/#74b4b6b477e5.

Flanagan, Linda. “The Downsides of America’s Hyper-Competitive Youth-Soccer Industry.” The Atlantic, 13 July 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/07/the-downsides-of-americas-hyper-competitive-youth-soccer-industry/565109/.

Rosario, Samantha. “Social and Emotional Benefits of Playing Sports.” Sports Jobs Blog, 15 May 2017, www.workinsports.com/blog/social-and-emotional-benefits-of-playing-sports/.

#soccer #highschool

Lesbian Sexuality: Greece and the 1930′s

“The truth is, I wish I were dead. She left me, whispering often, and she said this,

‘Oh what a cruel fate is ours, Sappho, yes, I leave you against my will.’

And I answered her: ‘Farewell, go and remember me, for you know how we

cared for you.” (Sappho Fr. 94 and 96)

#lesbian #women's rights #greek women #ancient greece #sappho #1930s #queer women #artemis #sapphic

Sexuality in Ancient Greece

In looking at sexuality in Ancient Greece, the differences between women and men are major. The examination of these differences shed light on the overall inequities between the genders.

The Greeks had specific terms for the different classifications of love. ‘Eros’ was a passionate and sexual love, and while this love could sometimes refer to married couples, it was also used in relation to homosexual male relationships. Sex was not as gendered as it is today, as a man’s eros attractions could lead him to men or women without judgement. In fact, men partnering with men was viewed as a better choice in some circumstances as women were seen as ignorant, naive, and hardly more than providers of children (Bloch). A wife was not meant to be a husband’s life partner. Outside of the desire for a more ‘equal’ partner, homosexuality was near foundational in some elements of Greek culture, often times accompanied by pedophilloic practices. Spartan military practice was interlaced with pederasty between senior officers and new recruits as a sort of initiation act and in Thebes there was even a whole battialion of queer men, the Sacred Band (Gill). Some research has found that not all of Greece was accepting of pederastic sexuality, as the people of Ionia were noted by geographer Pausanias to consider pedophilia an evil action (Bloch). It is undeniable, however, that pederasty was widespread in areas like Athens and Sparta. Outside of homosexuality, men, who didn’t marry until there late 20’s or early 30’s, could find sexual relief in the many brothels sprinkled throughout Greece. Men, in marriage and out of it, were free to enjoy any sort of sex they wished under the guise of superior intellect and more nuanced understandings of love and desire.

Greek women were from the start of their lives in the 400’s living at a disadvantage. Greek mythology was deeply interconnected with sex and gender and starting with the troublesome Pandora opening a box to sin and Zeus’s male dominance over the world, women became villains (Brown). They were assumed by nature to be lesser than men in every sense, Plato noting them as having a “weakness in class” and being somewhere between a man and an animal (Khowais 60). Greek marriages were fairly sexless, seen as a political move, and served mainly as a way to maintain a legacy. Women, unlike their male counterparts, were expected to be virgins when they entered marriage and not allowed to talk to other non family men, never mind have sex with them outside of marriage (Cartwright). A handful of philosophers even believe that women were unable to find enjoyment from sex.

Though, women were not completely devoid of outlets for their desires. Some followed the teachings of the poet Sappho. She ran a thiasos, which was an isolated colony “in which Greek girls could receive a basic education and, at the same time, were exposed to homosexual love” (Brown). Greek women also possibly used sex toys as a means of pleasure not provided by their husbands. Research has revealed the possible use of primitive dildos made from breadsticks called an olisbokollikes through the recommendations of doctors for women to use to achieve orgasm and relieve hysteria (Wolfert). Outside of these two freedoms, however, women lacked much sexual or even personal freedoms.

Bloch, Enid. “Sex between Men and Boys in Classical Greece: Was It Education for Citizenship or Child Abuse?” The Journal of Mens Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 31 Jan. 2001, pp. 183–204., doi:10.3149/jms.0902.183.

Brown, Alice. “Ancient Greek Sex Lives: God on God Action, Erotic Magic & the Language of Love .” History Answers, 5 Apr. 2018, https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/ancient/ancient-greek-sex-lives-god-on-god-action-erotic-magic-the-language-of-love-nsfw/.

Cartwright, Mark. “Women in Ancient Greece.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 26 Aug. 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/article/927/women-in-ancient-greece/.

Gill, N.S. “How Did the Ancient Greeks Understand Sex and Sexuality?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 7 Jan. 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/ancient-greek-eroticism-4092848.

Khowais, Ruth E. Bad Girls: The Criminalization of Female Sexuality, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, Ann Arbor, 2001.

Wolfert, Daniel. "Sex Toys Satisfy through the Ages." University Wire, Feb 20, 2015.

#women #ancientgreece #greece #ancient greece #sexuality #sappho

Timeline of Greece: 5th Century BCE

499-494 BCE - The Ionian Greeks revolt against Persian Rule (start of the Persian Wars)

490 – Battle of Marathon – Persian invaders defeated by the Athenian army

480-479 – Second Persian invasion, thwarted by united Greek city-states

478 – Athens founds the Delian League as an anti-Persian precaution

460-446 – First Peloponnesian War – Sparta and allies vs. Athens and allies

447 - Thebes defeats Athens

446 – Thirty Years Truce between Sparta and Athens

431-404 - The Peloponnesian War, Sparta is victorious

#greece #ancientgreece #timeline

The Delian League

The Delian League was a group of maritime Greek city-states along the Aegean coast. Athens was in charge of the alliance, which kept its headquarters and treasury at Delos. If a member city-state could not provide ships, they would contribute money. The original purpose of the League was to build a formidable naval force to protect against Persia. Once the Persian Wars were over, Athens kept control of the treasury and used the naval power to keep colonies in the Aegean and the Black Sea under control. The Delian League was also involved in the war in the time frame between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars. This war was sometimes was also known as the First Peloponnesian War (460-446 BCE). In this conflict, Athens’s attempts to expand westward was squashed by Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth on the Boeotian battlefield (Warry). The Delian League was an intimidating force, and likely added to the tensions between Athens and the Peloponnesian states the years before the Peloponnesian War.

#greece #ancientgreece #thedelianleague

Learn how to pronounced names and terms from Aristophanes' "Lysistrata."

A good guide to the pronunciation of some of the names and words in the play! Please confirm with director about final pronunciation of all names and words!

#greece #ancientgreece #pronunciation #lysistrata

The Persian Wars

The Persian Wars occurred in the 490s BCE, and again from 480-479 BCE. These conflicts started with the revolt of the Greek city-state of Ionia against Persian rule. Ionia had been conquered by the Lydia kingdom, which was then overtaken by the Persian Empire, placing the Ionians under Persian control (Martin 100). The Persian’s were on a quest to conquer Greek colonies, and later try to conquer Greece itself (Livingston xii). The Ionian rebels sent requests for assistance from several other Greek city-states, including Athens and Sparta. Sparta declined, for it was too far of a distance to travel, but Athens voted to help the Ionians. When the Persian King Darius discovered that Athens had assisted in this revolt, he sent ships and troops to attack Athens at Marathon. The Persians outnumbered the Athenians (Martin 100). By forcing the Persians into hand to hand combat, the better armed and armored Greeks defeated the Persian troops on the Marathon plain. Then, the Athenians ran more than twenty miles from Marathon to Athens to protect the city against the Persian navy, in which they were also victorious. This moment in Athenian history gave Athenians an “unparalleled boost” of self-confidence. Then, in 480 BCE, Xerses I, son of King Darius, led the Persians on a revenge mission to conquer mainland Greece, with an insane amount of forces (101). This threat united 31 Greek city-states as a military coalition, with Sparta taking the lead. This part of the Persian Wars featured the 300 Spartan soldiers that confronted the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae. When these soldiers heard that the number of Persian archers could block out the sun with their arrows, one allegedly responded that “That’s good news […] We will get to fight in the shade” (103). Ultimately, the Greeks were able to beat the Persians and drive them out of Greece. The Persian Wars created even more pride in the Greek identity and demonstrated the values of courage and political freedom in Greek society (105). The Persian Wars also serve as a precursor to the Peloponnesian Wars.

#persianwars #peloponnesianwar #greekhistory #ancientgreece

Ellen Mclaughlin

Ellen Mclaughlin is a very accomplished playwright. Outside of her translation of Lysistrata, her work includes Days and Nights Within, Infinity's House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, The Trojan Women, Ajax in Iraq, and Penelope which have been produced at theaters such as the New York Theater Workshop in NYC, Actors' Theater of Louisville, The Actors' Gang L.A., The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Getty Villa, California., and The Guthrie Theater, Minnesota (Biography). As shown by her body of work, Mclaughlin has always had a fascination with the history and art of Greek culture as well with the work of adaptation. She says on the work of adaptation that her goal is always to keep “the primal formative power” of whatever piece she is adapting (Higgins).

The choice for her to adapt Lysistrata came from the 2003 “Lysistrata Project”, which started as just an organized reading of the play in response to the Iraq War and developed into over a thousand readings and many adaptations and rewrites of the work, one of these being Mclaughlin’s work. On the popularity and long lasting appeal of the play through history, Mclaughlin has said “Nobody can resist an ancient Greek dick joke” (Blume).

“Biography.” Ellen McLaughlin, https://www.ellenmmclaughlin.com/biography?fbclid=IwAR1SgTRmF-T5wk_-hYai8YlLCOxVrDX2-WobGf67a0UNWqudqO60RaMUg2M.

Blume, Kathryn. “Lysistrata Project.” Beautiful Trouble, https://beautifultrouble.org/case/lysistrata-project/?fbclid=IwAR2neZXCD6O8CxbPbJrW3_DG4Gk_cUa8juang655Mo7aAogYEON2Md4QHZc.

“Islands of Joy.” Islands of Joy, 18 Oct. 2010, https://islandsofjoy.blogspot.com/2010/10/interview-with-ellen-mclaughlin.html?fbclid=IwAR0YSGC20i4y65O3Ax9SNxDMRnJSnMTRJB9Idz1JP4-K0MVHv1EQ3Bi-8X0.

#playwrights #ellen mclaughlin

Acrobatics

The term acrobatics comes from the Greek words ‘acros’ and ‘bat’ which loosely translates to “high walking”. Acrobatics have been seen in recorded history since 2000 BC, depicted in Egyptian and Greek vases and murals, however, acrobatics in terms of circus and traveling troupes originated in Rome. Troupes that were made up of many types of performers, including acrobats, would travel the Roman Empire and perform in cities along the way. The skill of acrobatics made its way into America in the 1800’s through major circuses such as that of PT Barnum and William Cameron Coup. Another instrumental party in the popularization of American acrobatics was the The Flying Wallendas, who were active from 1922 up through most of the twentieth century. Their acts sensationalized the art of acrobatics with feats like high wire in Madison Square Garden with no net and biking across the wire. From then on, acrobatics have become beloved in America for the danger and intrigue involved in the risky acts. Acrobatics have been most successful with the popularity of Cirque du Soleil, which has done a great deal of work in preserving the art of acrobatics. Acrobatics, in Greece, in turn-of-the-century America, and now, have always held the favor of their viewing public.

“History of Aerialism and Acrobatics .” Aerialists.org , 28 Apr. 2010, http://www.aerialists.org/history-aerialism-acrobats-cirque-performance/.

#circus acts #acrobatics

Women in 5th Century BCE Greece

Greek culture and mythology considered women as “naturally wild” (Ruden 99) beings, and yet marriage was the norm, in order to “contain all of the solutions to the social problems of women” (100). This idea stems from Greek mythology and the idea that women are descendants of Pandora, who was created by Zeus as a punishment for man. However, it was a widespread belief that men still must marry in order to “sire children to serve as his support system in his waning years.” So, women were a “necessary evil” in this mythology, but in reality, they were the backbone of Greek society (Martin 69). A woman in Athenian society was generally expected to stay indoors. They occasionally were able to get out of the house when participating in religious rituals, some of which were specifically for women (Ruden 101). Poor women sometimes worked in markets as merchants, and Spartan women trained with men on the same level, but the expectation for Greek women was to stay at home and run the household. This responsibility was no easy task:

[Women] were expected to raise the children, supervise the preservation and preparation of food, keep the family’s financial accounts, weave cloth to make clothing, direct the work of the household slaves, and nurse them when they were ill. Households thus depended on women, whose work permitted the family to be economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis. (Martin 68)

On top of this responsibility, women played significant roles in funerals, festivals, and rituals. A woman who decided to take on the role of a priestess could have enjoyed “considerable prestige, practical benefits such as a salary paid by the state, and greater freedom of movement in public” (68). Generally, it was improper for higher class Athenian women to be outdoors unaccompanied other than for special events. It would even be immodest for a woman to answer the door herself, as opposed to her servant answering. Even speaking a respectable woman’s name in public speeches or conversations was socially looked down upon unless necessary. Upper-class Athenian women spent the majority of their time within their houses in rooms and courtyards reserved for women. Male visitors were not allowed in these rooms, but female friends and their children could socialize in these areas (137).

The Archaic Age saw the formation of the idea of citizenship and city-states in Greece. Although only men had the right to political participation, women were still considered citizens. There is a specific word in the Greek language, politis, that translates to “female citizen.” This word implies a difference between women who are citizens and those who would have been considered foreigners or slaves. Citizen women would have had the privileges of belonging to religious groups reserved only for citizens and of legal protection against kidnapping. Women could own property in certain situations. It was more likely a Spartan woman would be able to, especially with large numbers of Spartan men dying in the wars of the Classical Age (79). Athenian women would have been able to own property or land in some cases of inheritance, like if they had no brothers to claim it first (135).

The inequality of women’s citizenship is apparent in the fact that, while women could go to court over legal issues, they were not able to represent themselves. They had to have a man speak for them. Every woman had to have a male guardian, whether he was her father, husband, uncle, brother, in order to protect her “physically and legally” (Martin 61). Men arranged marriages, often when the woman was still a child. Divorce was acceptable, as a man could forcibly expel his wife from his house, or she could leave on her initiative. Even then, she could be forced to stay by her husband (68). Men altogether had more sexual freedom than women. They were able to sleep with “slaves, foreign concubines, female prostitutes, or wiling pre-adult citizen males” without penalty, while women faced harsh punishment for any act of adultery. The exception was that Spartan women were allowed to have sex out of wedlock to become pregnant, and only if the husband consented. The widely accepted inequalities against women are rooted in the Greek patriarchy’s desire to control reproduction to ensure the legitimacy of the children born in their society (69).

This background knowledge of Greek women’s roles in societies emphasizes the radical nature of what Lysistrata is doing. She is becoming politically active outside of the house, speaking in public, and taking control of any possibility of reproduction. She is going against everything society has told her she should do, and she is doing it for the good of that society.

#women #greekwomen #history

The Peloponnesian War

After the main part of Persian wars, and after Sparta withdrew its assistance, Athens continued to campaign to free Greek states that were in the Persian Empire. While doing so, Athens was growing into an Athenian Empire. With their newfound power, the Athenians decided to make a campaign to win more of mainland Greece, but eventually gave us and agreed on a thirty years’ peace with Sparta. However, as Athens continued to maintain power over the islands and coastal towns of Greece, The Peloponnesian States of Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, felt threatened (Livingstone xiii). Sparta and Athens especially had issues when it came to dealing with each other’s allied city-states (Martin 150). Corinth was also especially bitter towards Athens, as it was the other competing colonial commercial power in Greece. The Peloponnesian States as a whole were afraid that “Athens might one day use her power to destroy their trade and cut off their imports of food.” They felt bound to the cause against Athens (Livingston xviii).

War broke out in 431 BCE when Athens refused to meet Sparta’s conditions for peace. Athens and its allies found themselves facing up against the Peloponnesian States, which were led by Sparta (xiii). In other words, the start of the Peloponnesian War was caused by two conflicting powers that felt threatened by one another, and who refused to find any compromise. Richard Livingston, the editor of Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War, comments that the Greek city-states “behave like modern peoples and are moved to war by the same motives of jealousy, ambition, rivalry, fear, political, and economic interest” (xviii). In 430 BCE, after one year of fighting, Athens was hit with a plague, which killed from one-third to two-thirds of the Athenian population. Also killed by the plague was the Athenian general, Pericles (History.com). Ultimately, the Athenians were forced to surrender after suffering devastating blows to their morale in the later part of the wars (Cartledge 109-110).

#peloponnesianwar

Ancient Greece

Greece’s human history goes back as far as 11,000 BCE. The period from then until around 3000 BCE is known as the Stone Age. The period after that, the Bronze Age, named for the development of metalworking, lasted until about 1000 BCE. This era was known for population growth and the creation of such civilizations like the Minoan and the Mycenaean. In 1000 BCE, Greece entered a period called the Greek Dark Age, in which there was a high amount of poverty and relocation of Greek civilizations. Then, the Archaic Age (750-500 BCE) brought about the formation of many ancient Greek structures, including the polis, or the city-state. After the Archaic Age comes the Classical Age, which brought in Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, as well as Aristophanes and his plays. The Classical Age ended with the death of Alexander the Great around 323 BCE, and the Hellenistic Age began.

An important aspect to know about Ancient Greece is the concept of city-states. Greece did not function as a single united nation. Most likely because its geography of mountains that separated plains and valleys, individual city-states that were politically independent began to form (Martin 1). The people in the different Greek city-states had some similarities. They spoke dialects of the same language, they practiced similar customs and worshipped similar gods, and they often came together at international festivals. In other words, Ancient Greece could be defined more as a “set of shared ideas and practices rather than a sharply demarcated territorial or national entity” (4). The sea was also significant to Greek culture, as the roads and rivers in Greece were not as useful for transportation. Many Greek settlements found themselves no farther than 40 miles from a coast (2).

Despite the lack of cooperation between city-states, Greeks generally held themselves in high esteem and thought themselves an intelligent people. Aristotle even said, “If they could forge political unity among themselves, they could control the rest of the world” (4).

#greece #ancientgreece #history

Women in the 1930’s: Timeline

1920: The 19th Amendment is passed, which gives women the right to vote (Beach).

1929: The stock market crashes and as many men, who had been the sole providers of household income, lose their jobs, women step up to join the workforce. They receive backlash for stealing jobs and are even blamed by some for starting the Great Depression (Lewis).

1930: The Detroit Black Women’s Housewives’ League by Fannie Peck with the goal of getting black women into the workforce (Grevatt).

1932: Amelia Earhart flys non-stop across the Atlanic. She is the first woman to do this as well as the second pilot ever to do so (Milestones in Women’s History).

1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected as America’s 32nd president. His wife, Elenor Roosevelt, becomes a champion for women’s rights, a known supporter of the League of Women Voters and the efforts towards female racial equality (Dowd).

1933: Francis Perkins becomes the first woman cabinet official as Secretary of Labor (Lewis).

1935: “The Detroit Housewives’ League burned a meatpacking factory down as a show of protest against its high costs. They later stage a march in Chicago that shuts down the city’s meatpacking industry (Grevatt)

1937:The Flint sit-down strike female cigar workers begins in February. 4,000 women, most of them Polish, strike with the complaints of long work weeks, inadequate restrooms, and unsafe working conditions. In March, police attack those on strike, even throwing pregnant workers to the ground, and the backlash from the community is immense. By April 23, through the work of the Michigan governor Frank Murphy, an agreement is reached between the cigar factories and their female workers to draft a union contract (Grevatt).

1938: In the supreme court case of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, paying workers a standard minimum wage is made a requirement. This was key to the labor rights of many women (Lewis).

Beach, Justin. “Limits to Women's Rights in the 1930s.” Classroom, 27 June 2018, https://classroom.synonym.com/limits-to-womens-rights-in-the-1930s-12082808.html.

Dowd, Dr. Mary. “American Women in the 1890s.” Classroom, 26 June 2018, https://classroom.synonym.com/american-women-1890s-13099.html.

Grevatt, Martha. “1930s: The Women Were Fearless.” Worker's World, 27 Mar. 2008, https://www.workers.org/2008/us/womens_history_month_0403/.

Lewis, Jone Johnson. “Slow and Steady: Women's Changing Roles in 1930s America.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 19 Jan. 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/womens-rights-1930s-4141164.

“Milestones in Women's History: A Timeline.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 26 Feb. 2019, https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/womens-history-us-timeline.

#women #1930s #women's rights

Vaudeville Origins

Vaudeville is defined loosely by Encyclopedia Britannica as a “farce with music”. The first recorded use of the term ‘vaudeville’ in America was its use for theatre company “Sargent’s Great Vaudeville Company” in Kentucky (An Annotated History of Vaudeville Theatre). Starting in the 1890’s in almost every major American city as a means of response to growing urban population and a boom in wages and, with that, free time. One vaudeville ‘show’ was typically made up of ten to fifteen separate acts that included comedy sets, contortionists, jugglers, and musicians, and went on for hours. Performers from these shows were characterized by their one signature act and would repeat it for audience after audience (About Vaudeville).

Vaudeville began as a more varied evolution of the minstrel shows that proceeded it before the Civil War. Though blackface was still common in early vaudeville, black performers, such as comedian Bert Williams, were finding their place in the spotlight (Vale). Another way vaudeville evolved from minstrel was the opportunities it afforded immigrants. With the influx of immigrants entering America in the 1890’s, many chose to enter the entertainment industry and inject many cultural flavors into American vaudeville. One popular performer was Polish immigrant Molly Picon was famous for her use of Yiddish in her shows (Vale). This mix of cultures and ethnicities helped to both endear and familiarize many of the immigrants to other Americans and establish vaudeville as a culturally rich form of performance.

“About Vaudeville.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 29 Nov. 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/vaudeville-about-vaudeville/721/.

“An Annotated History of Vaudeville Theatre.” TheaterSeatStore Blog, 21 Mar. 2019, https://www.theaterseatstore.com/blog/vaudeville-theater.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Vaudeville.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 19 Aug. 2008, https://www.britannica.com/art/vaudeville.

Vale, Max. “Vaudeville and the American Dream.” Artifacts Journal, no. 6, Mar. 2012.

#vaudeville #vaudeville origins #American history

Old Comedy and Aristophanic Comedy

In the 5th century BCE Greece, there were two primary forms of theatre: tragedy and comedy. Old Comedy refers to the type of comedy that Aristophanes and others created before the start of the 4th century. The plays that Aristophanes wrote would have been presented at an annual festival, such as Lenaia or City Dionysia, and would have competed against other plays. While Aristophanes did not win every year at these festivals, he is the only playwright with wholly extant works for us to read. Therefore, his work serves as the basis of what Old Comedy was. Old Comedy is characterized mainly by its critiques of politics and bawdy humor. The people in comedic plays and their behavior would have been familiar in some way to the audiences, and they would have faced problems that were simple, yet immediate. The Chorus is one of the most well-known parts of Greek comedy, and McLaughlin works to keep the spirit of that tradition alive. Traditionally, a chorus would consist of 24 players who would, at some point, divide into two opposing groups and abuse each other verbally and physically. These actors would usually dressed in ridiculous outfits which padded the stomach and butt and would perform intricate movements as well. McLaughlin narrows the traditional Chorus down, and yet keeps the spirit of the classic part of the comedy, with the Athenian Chorus Leaders and the Geezers and Old Women, and the circus-like elements should echo back to the original appearance and movement of the Chorus. The ending of McLaughlin’s adaptation is also true to the comedic form – “good” prevails, and everyone takes part in a celebration.

Aristophanes’s style of comedy has some of its distinctive elements. Moses Hadas, the editor of The Complete Works of Aristophanes, calls his comedy intellectual, rather than sentimental. In other words, Aristophanes reached readers through their head as opposed to their hearts. Incongruity, or inconsistency, is a large part of this intellectual humor. Puns are incongruous because they put two unexpected meanings together. A phallus suddenly being revealed or talked about is funny because it is incongruous to the norm of covering up and being discreet when talking about those things. In other words, the inappropriate is hilarious.

#greekcomedy

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