Naed Goddess on Stage

She was the only one naked on the stage.

This was the final act of "Lysistrata", a comic play written by Aristophanes about 2400 years ago. This production was put on by the drama department of a mid-sized college, and the limited advertising said the school had taken some liberties with certain details, but the basic premise of the drama remained intact and that the costumes were close to the original.

A few days before the performance, I went to my college library for a modern translation of the play and learned that it was a commentary on both the futility of war and the power of women. I also read that over the years the play was often banned, not so much for onstage nudity but for its anti-war stance and for its threat that women have power over men!

Here's a summary of "Lysistrata" as I saw it:

Once the curtain came up in the large, full auditorium, I became immersed in the history of the Peloponnesian Wars for the first forty-five minutes, setting the background for the final act.

Once the curtain rose on the final act, here's what I saw:

About a dozen male actors cast as ancient Greek warriors are on the left, and a similar number of women as their wives are on the right. The only prop on the dimly lit stage is a large armchair on a low platform at the front center of the stage.

The seat of this throne is eye-level to the other actors. Seated on it is the warrior commander. The footlights illuminate the commander, the rest of the stage is dim.

The warriors are in togas and their wives are in sheer, nearly translucent gowns. Leading up to this final act, the warriors and the wives have been arguing back and forth: The warriors want to continue their wars but are demanding that their wives give them sex, which the wives are withholding until the wars stop. This causes the men to groan in pain with their huge erections. (The 'erections' are prosthetic strap-ons, big cushy phalluses sticking about a meter straight out from each man's toga.)

Desperate as they are for sex, the warriors still don't agree to stop their wars. So Lysistrata, the commander's wife, resorts to summoning "The Naked Goddess of Peace and Reconciliation", or "Peace" for short. A bright spotlight follows the Goddess Peace as she descends to the front center of the stage on a sort of rope swing. She's beautiful and very feminine. Maybe a little older than the other actresses. Gorgeous, as the role requires. She steps off the swing and assumes a goddess-like pose as the spotlight remains on her. Her waist-length long hair is obviously a wig, adding to the other-worldliness of her appearance. Her demeanor is regal and dignified.

Being a goddess with no need for clothing, she is nude. Totally.

The only bright lights are on her naked body, the rest of the stage being lit only enough for us to perceive the other actors moving about.

And since gods and goddesses outrank mortal rulers, she turns toward the throne, motions for the warrior commander to get out of her way, and she climbs up to take his place, the spotlight following her. Seated, she spreads her legs wide and drapes each leg over an armrest. Being close to the front of the stage, her naked body is now lit by both the spotlight and the footlights.

With her body exposed to us, there's no doubt as to the gender of who is now ruling. She maintains this pose for the rest of the play.

In spite of this being just a play, there's a real, live woman sitting there nude, facing the audience. With her legs open. Wide open.

Her thick dark pubic hair is in sharp contrast to her light skin. She had obviously made the effort to trim it to an attractive but natural shape, knowing it would be the well-lit center of attention for the entire final act. She had evidently removed all trace of hair around her lips to show bare skin all the way around her vaginal slit. No stray hairs stuck out from the sides of her bush, so the edges of her dark triangle were cleanly defined against the pink smoothness of her lips.

The warriors gasp in surprise and appreciation, and ogle at every part of Peace's body as Lysistrata reminds them that this is what they've been missing by continuing their wars.

The Goddess Peace sits nude as the wives tease the husbands by pointing out and commenting on Peace's physical charms, and the husbands come up for closer looks. They describe in graphic terms what they, and of course every person in the audience, sees.

Then they remember they have a war to fight, but their wives remind then they must sign a truce as a condition for resuming sex. The warriors agree and begin outlining the truce. Referring to various parts of Peace's body, the warriors discuss how the land will be divided as terms of the truce. They use her body as a sort of topographic map. They describe the firmness and roundness of her breasts as the mountains, her pointed nipples as the mountain peaks, and her cleavage as the valley between the mountains. Her bottom represents another mountain range and the valley between. When they get around to discussing the forest, they point to the lushness of her pubic hair as the trees, and the long narrow opening of her vagina as representing the river that divides the forest. They discuss in detail the beauty of the river, her pink lips suggesting the river banks, and many come in for a closer look. They decide that this must be the wet season, since the river appears to be flowing. And they talk about how the small hooded nub just under the top of her vaginal opening looks like an oarsman in a tiny boat.

(Now I understood why she had trimmed her pubic hair so carefully; a clear view of her genitals was an integral part of the plot. This is one brave role she has put herself into!)

The warriors discuss how the folds of her inner and outer labia also represent the furrows of the fertile agricultural fields, irrigated by the river flowing between. The warriors and their wives look more closely and decide the inner lips are the sandy river banks and the outer ones are the rows in the fields. They remark on the wetness of the entire area.

With her legs draped over the armrests, her bottom is tipped up a bit. The warriors look under and begin a detailed description of her anus and how it must be the hole in the Earth from which the Oracle speaks. Since the goddess has only one anus, the two sides agree to share the Oracle. They agree that just like she has only one vagina they will share the river, but since she has inner and outer lips on both sides they will each have one side of the river for agriculture. And likewise since she has two nipples they will each get a mountain peak. Everything seems in order for the truce.

All the while, the flesh-and-blood actress remains speechless and motionless and expressionless, except for her slight smile. She's on full display to the audience and open to the probings of her cast mates, even to their comments about her real sexual secretions, the color and wetness of her clitoris and labia and the hardness of her nipples. She's at the far limit of vulnerability, yet with her hint of a smile she seems to hold some mysterious power over the other actors, and over her audience. She faces straight ahead, her eyes shifting around the auditorium. I caught her eye a couple of times. She's a real person, with nothing to hide behind.

But back to the play... The warriors are so engrossed in their "topographic map" they forget that they're drooling over a beautiful goddess's naked body, until their wives remind them of what they really want: sex with their wives. Snapping back to the real world, the warriors remember how much they miss sex, sign the truce, then get back to their drooling.

After paying proper respect to the goddess by tipping their phalluses toward her, each warrior departs with his own wife, who leads him offstage, presumably for home to have sex. They're all gone, only the goddess remains, awash in the glow of the spotlight. She hasn't said a word; she hasn't flinched. She's still smiling straight ahead. As the light fades, the curtain comes down. The play is over.

For the curtain call, the actress playing Peace took her bows with in a sheer gown, similar to the other female actresses.

I attended this adaptation of "Lysistrata" years ago while in college. The play was put on as experimental theater by the drama department of a the local community college. By billing the production as "experimental" they didn't have to stay within the normal rules of stage productions. There were four scheduled performances.

She certainly delivered the bravest performance I've ever seen on a stage. Of course I fell in love with her right away! In the playbill there was no name listed for the role of "The Naked Goddess of Peace and Reconciliation", and the long blonde wig she wore probably confounded anyone trying to identify her.

I never was able to find out who the "Peace" actress was. Who was she? A student? But more likely a grad student. Someone's wife or girlfriend? A professional actress imported just for this production? An artist's model? She was certainly somebody's daughter, maybe even someone's mother!

Or, maybe she was a real goddess who descended to our stage for just fifteen minutes and then disappeared just as mysteriously!