Lysistrata’s Children

Play: Lysistrata’s Children

Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm, 12/23

Place: Theater for the New City

The play Lysistrata’s Children is telling the story of a group of children persuades their parents to sign an oath of "Victory over violence." They start with a parade of showing the important things happened in American history. The little girl finds that this country has been celebrating violence and war for a long time. She thinks that she has the responsibility to do something to change this country. So she brings her friends together to brainstorm good ideas that will make this world more peaceful. These children came up with a lot of wonderful and funny ideas. However many of them agree to make the first step by influencing their parents to sign an oath of “Victory over violence.” However according to Philip Suraci, the director, he was inspired by Aristophanes that Athenian wives denied their husbands sex in order to persuade them to make peace. Therefore, in this play, as a bargaining chip, children ask parents to sign the oath for making the world a peaceful place. Finally children’s action gets more and more parents’ supports, and even the whole society hears their voice through media.

I think this play is very powerful in a way that we should believe everyone can make a change. I have always been thinking that war is a heavy topic for young children. But after seeing how children could form their own opinion on a tough topic, like war, I feel more confident of teaching them. Although this play is designed for adult to see, I definitely think it is also suitable for elementary school students because its language, idea and action are all very easy to understand. As a future teacher, we could use this play as part of a unit plan to have the children learn about the real world which is not always peaceful and pretty. I want them to be critical, but also at the same time to have the faith that they can make a change. This play is providing a good example for children to know one of the actions that they could actually use.

However, in the play, the transition from the parade of American history to the little girl’s critical thinking is not very smooth which makes me feel a little too sudden. Overall I think this play is very nice and educational.