What I liked
I like the combination of high and lowbrow and the performers joy was infectious.
What I didn't like
Some of the humor felt like first draft jokes, still funny but they could have dug deeper.
My overall impression
It’s perhaps important to remember that at every stage of the development of the idea of democracy there has been cautions regarding the potential pitfalls inherent in the system that can’t necessarily be baked out of the system and fall on the participants to guard against.
The production approaches Aristophanes The Birds with that premise, roughly paraphrased from the notes in the program.
What that entails is the basic story of The Birds, who set up their own utopia between the earth and the gods and updating its references and jokes, making the implication that our modern political climate is exactly what Aristophanes was trying to warn against.
This makes the old Greek satire accessible and relevant. With each performer able to define their roles (per the program) there’s a glee in each performance which becomes infectious. It also means that you can get complex cultural democracy commentary and fart and poop jokes. A classic combination.
It means you can watch it and laugh at the surface comedy or laugh and consider the warnings and responsibility we have to safeguard democracy. Either way you’re going to laugh.
