[NEohioPAL]DELETE NOW: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THEATRE (ABRIDGED)

[Mike and Ike]

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WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING CLASS SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN  BY CHILDREN, FOREIGNERS, PEOPLE WITH NO SENSE OF HUMOR, PEOPLE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR, ANYONE WITH AN IQ OVER 80, OR GEORGE W. BUSH
 
COURSE 1 1-A  DOING IT GREEK STYLE
 

MIKE: (English accent) Greetings and salutations, theatre students. He’s not Professor Mike.

IKE: (Southern accent) He ain’t Professor Ike.

M: Before we begin today’s lecture we have a few announcements. First off, one of our students, Adam Meyer, is celebrating a birthday this week.

I: Whoop de friggin do.

M: Isaac!

I: Oh, all right, fine!

(SINGING)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

YOU GOT CAST IN LAUGHTER

SCREW THIS UP, YOU’RE THROUGH

There. Happy?

M: More than he is right now. Secondly, our field trip to Aurora Community Theatre next week has been cancelled due to a complete lack of interest from us and finally, Grease 3 is still being made.

I: Hey, Travolta may have dropped out but Olivia Newton John still needs work.

M: That being said, let’s start the lecture, the topic of which shares the same name as the aforementioned sure to be celluloid intellectual rape.

I: Greece is the word.

M: Yes, the land that gave us gyros, hairy chests, and occasionally painful sexual practices also gave us theatre that professors with tenure still try to force down the throats of uncaring O.C. wannabees even today.

I: Ta tell the story we must go back, back in time. Before Lloyd Webber, before Shakespeare, before Christ, but a few years after Cher, a time when togas were mandatory, men hung out together constantly, and the women were sold ta the men so they could say they weren’t gay.

M: There were only two forms of legitimate theatre shown in Athens, the intellectual and social jewel of the empire. 

I:  Like Lodi.

M:  No, more like Zainesville.  There were plays full of unhappy people doing lots of unspeakable things to each other until they all die at the end and there were poets doing monologues about pretty much the same thing.

I: Meanwhile, out in the country and in keeping with the Greek tradition, there were all these festivals praisin’ the penis. People would go from village to village, some on carts, most on foot, bearin’ the symbol of the almighty schlong, insultin’ everbody they came in contact with and singin’ songs about Phales, who was the right hand of Bacchus, the Greek god of frat boys. Bet Bacchus used his right hand on Phales.

M: Isaac!

I: What? I didn’t come up with this crap. I’m just commenting on it.

M: Similar events occurred in Athens and the other major cities as well, after the great banquets.

I: Orgies.

M: Seven of nine; four of the other three.

PAUSE

I: What?

M: That ought to occupy what’s left of his brain for awhile.

I: Hey!

M: In the cities, after everyone got good and liquered up, the young men of the town would grab torches, a flute or lyre player—

I: Lyre lyre—lute’s on fire!

M: And would go running around the town playing Andrew Dice Clay and singing rude songs. The group of revelers was called a comus, one of them was called a camoedus or comus singer, and the songs they would sing were called comedia.

I: I should be makin’ a toilet joke about now but it just don’t seem worth it.

M: Pericles, who pretty much ran Athens at the time, found this drunken abuse quite funny and said to himself, "Self, I’m sick of being depressed when I leave the theatre" and thus, potty humor was put on stage.

I: So you decide to do it. Cheap bastard. 

M: Greek comedy can be divided into three distinct phases, even though there really isn’t much difference between them. The first, appropriately enough, is called Old Comedy. Writers of this style would pick someone or something either they didn’t like or was frowned upon by popular culture and utterly destroy it in the rudest, most politically incorrect (With apologies to Bill Maher) fashion imaginable. Even though little to no texts from this period exist, stories of just how rude, crude, and socially unattractive these plays were are legendary.

I: Politics a la Porky’s.

M: In today’s "Janet Jackson’s nipple is the embodiment of Satan" society, these productions would be totally unacceptable. In ancient Greece, they were allowed for two very important reasons.

I: One: they just didn’t give a shit.

M: And two: they borrowed several conventions from traditional dramatic theatre—dances, masked actors, and an elegance of whit that most comedians today would give an organ for—which gave an aura of legitimacy to these admittedly low brow proceedings.

I: Middle comedy is just as nasty as Old comedy except they got rid of the chorus, stopped usin’ real people to slam (Bad move), and they stopped slammin’ specific people and things and started slammin’ generic ideas and class structure. Oh yeah, and cooks. Fer some reason, these people hated cooks. Not sure why, maybe there was a lot of poisonin’ goin’ on, wish I cared.

M: New comedy has the distinction of being the first form of Greek comedy where love makes an appearance although, as Soft Cell put it, it is a tainted love.

I: What? Ya mean—

M: No bestiality jokes!

PAUSE

I: Go on.

M: The one new character that appeared in this era of comedy was the soldier just returned from the wars with a full purse and an empty head.

I: Which one?

M: Exactly. One of the most interesting writers of Old and Middle comedies was Aristophanes, who was apparently just as raunchy as the plays he wrote.

I: Party animal, huh?

M: Indeed. And though he was loved by all for his invention and creativity in his lewdness, the man really needed help with titles. The Birds, The Clouds, The Frogs, The Archarnians, The Knights, The Wasps. For the love of Zeus, man, try something different!

I: Lysistrata?

PAUSE

M: Shut up.

I: Another writer that most normal people don’t know is Meander, who is regarded as the Stephen King of the Greek Comedy of Manners. The boy wrote over a hundred plays in 30 years and, though his name may have been Meander, his plots sure didn’t. Wanna know how he wrote a hundred plays in 30 years? He wrote the same damn one over and over!

M: Much like Stephen King. 

I: Finally, Mike found online lots of samples and a couple of full plays from this time period, and he gave me the cliff notes on all of em cause hell, only thing I read is Bloom County and books by Ed McBain, and we came to a conclusion.

M: As is the case with most "classic" literature, just because it’s old that doesn’t mean it’s any good.

PAUSE

I: One more thing: THE TIT SEEN ROUND THE WORLD MADE ME RAPE 23 WOMEN (and one man) IN A RETIREMENT HOME! NOW I’M GONNA GO SHOOT UP A GRADE SCHOOL! BABA BOOEY! BABA BOOEY!

M: I wanted to do that.

I: You took my toilet joke, limey. Deal with it.



---------------------------------
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<DIV><STRONG>WARNING:  THE FOLLOWING CLASS SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN  BY CHILDREN, FOREIGNERS, PEOPLE WITH NO SENSE OF HUMOR, PEOPLE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR, ANYONE WITH AN IQ OVER 80, OR GEORGE W. BUSH</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>COURSE 1 1-A  <STRONG>DOING IT GREEK STYLE</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>
<P>MIKE: (English accent) Greetings and salutations, theatre students. He’s not Professor Mike.</P>
<P>IKE: (Southern accent) He ain’t Professor Ike.</P>
<P>M: Before we begin today’s lecture we have a few announcements. First off, one of our students, Adam Meyer, is celebrating a birthday this week.</P>
<P>I: Whoop de friggin do.</P>
<P>M: Isaac!</P>
<P>I: Oh, all right, fine!</P>
<P align=center>(SINGING)</P>
<P align=center>HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU</P>
<P align=center>HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU</P>
<P align=center>YOU GOT CAST IN LAUGHTER</P>
<P align=center>SCREW THIS UP, YOU’RE THROUGH</P>
<P>There. Happy?</P>
<P>M: More than he is right now. Secondly, our field trip to Aurora Community Theatre next week has been cancelled due to a complete lack of interest from us and finally, Grease 3 is still being made.</P>
<P>I: Hey, Travolta may have dropped out but Olivia Newton John still needs work.</P>
<P>M: That being said, let’s start the lecture, the topic of which shares the same name as the aforementioned sure to be celluloid intellectual rape.</P>
<P>I: Greece is the word.</P>
<P>M: Yes, the land that gave us gyros, hairy chests, and occasionally painful sexual practices also gave us theatre that professors with tenure still try to force down the throats of uncaring O.C. wannabees even today.</P>
<P>I: Ta tell the story we must go back, back in time. Before Lloyd Webber, before Shakespeare, before Christ, but a few years after Cher, a time when togas were mandatory, men hung out together constantly, and the women were sold ta the men so they could say they weren’t gay.</P>
<P>M: There were only two forms of legitimate theatre shown in Athens, the intellectual and social jewel of the empire. </P>
<P>I:  Like Lodi.</P>
<P>M:  No, more like Zainesville.  There were plays full of unhappy people doing lots of unspeakable things to each other until they all die at the end and there were poets doing monologues about pretty much the same thing.</P>
<P>I: Meanwhile, out in the country and in keeping with the Greek tradition, there were all these festivals praisin’ the penis. People would go from village to village, some on carts, most on foot, bearin’ the symbol of the almighty schlong, insultin’ everbody they came in contact with and singin’ songs about Phales, who was the right hand of Bacchus, the Greek god of frat boys. Bet Bacchus used his right hand on Phales.</P>
<P>M: Isaac!</P>
<P>I: What? I didn’t come up with this crap. I’m just commenting on it.</P>
<P>M: Similar events occurred in Athens and the other major cities as well, after the great banquets.</P>
<P>I: Orgies.</P>
<P>M: Seven of nine; four of the other three.</P>
<P>PAUSE</P>
<P>I: What?</P>
<P>M: That ought to occupy what’s left of his brain for awhile.</P>
<P>I: Hey!</P>
<P>M: In the cities, after everyone got good and liquered up, the young men of the town would grab torches, a flute or lyre player—</P>
<P>I: Lyre lyre—lute’s on fire!</P>
<P>M: And would go running around the town playing Andrew Dice Clay and singing rude songs. The group of revelers was called a comus, one of them was called a camoedus or comus singer, and the songs they would sing were called comedia.</P>
<P>I: I should be makin’ a toilet joke about now but it just don’t seem worth it.</P>
<P>M: Pericles, who pretty much ran Athens at the time, found this drunken abuse quite funny and said to himself, "Self, I’m sick of being depressed when I leave the theatre" and thus, potty humor was put on stage.</P>
<P>I: So you decide to do it. Cheap bastard. </P>
<P>M: Greek comedy can be divided into three distinct phases, even though there really isn’t much difference between them. The first, appropriately enough, is called Old Comedy. Writers of this style would pick someone or something either they didn’t like or was frowned upon by popular culture and utterly destroy it in the rudest, most politically incorrect (With apologies to Bill Maher) fashion imaginable. Even though little to no texts from this period exist, stories of just how rude, crude, and socially unattractive these plays were are legendary.</P>
<P>I: Politics a la Porky’s.</P>
<P>M: In today’s "Janet Jackson’s nipple is the embodiment of Satan" society, these productions would be totally unacceptable. In ancient Greece, they were allowed for two very important reasons.</P>
<P>I: One: they just didn’t give a shit.</P>
<P>M: And two: they borrowed several conventions from traditional dramatic theatre—dances, masked actors, and an elegance of whit that most comedians today would give an organ for—which gave an aura of legitimacy to these admittedly low brow proceedings.</P>
<P>I: Middle comedy is just as nasty as Old comedy except they got rid of the chorus, stopped usin’ real people to slam (Bad move), and they stopped slammin’ specific people and things and started slammin’ generic ideas and class structure. Oh yeah, and cooks. Fer some reason, these people hated cooks. Not sure why, maybe there was a lot of poisonin’ goin’ on, wish I cared.</P>
<P>M: New comedy has the distinction of being the first form of Greek comedy where love makes an appearance although, as Soft Cell put it, it is a tainted love.</P>
<P>I: What? Ya mean—</P>
<P>M: No bestiality jokes!</P>
<P>PAUSE</P>
<P>I: Go on.</P>
<P>M: The one new character that appeared in this era of comedy was the soldier just returned from the wars with a full purse and an empty head.</P>
<P>I: Which one?</P>
<P>M: Exactly. One of the most interesting writers of Old and Middle comedies was Aristophanes, who was apparently just as raunchy as the plays he wrote.</P>
<P>I: Party animal, huh?</P>
<P>M: Indeed. And though he was loved by all for his invention and creativity in his lewdness, the man really needed help with titles. The Birds, The Clouds, The Frogs, The Archarnians, The Knights, The Wasps. For the love of Zeus, man, try something different!</P>
<P>I: Lysistrata?</P>
<P>PAUSE</P>
<P>M: Shut up.</P>
<P>I: Another writer that most normal people don’t know is Meander, who is regarded as the Stephen King of the Greek Comedy of Manners. The boy wrote over a hundred plays in 30 years and, though his name may have been Meander, his plots sure didn’t. Wanna know <I>how</I> he wrote a hundred plays in 30 years? He wrote the same damn one over and over!</P>
<P>M: Much like Stephen King. </P>
<P>I: Finally, Mike found online lots of samples and a couple of full plays from this time period, and he gave me the cliff notes on all of em cause hell, only thing I read is Bloom County and books by Ed McBain, and we came to a conclusion.</P>
<P>M: As is the case with most "classic" literature, just because it’s old that doesn’t mean it’s any good.</P>
<P>PAUSE</P>
<P>I: One more thing: <STRONG>THE TIT SEEN ROUND THE WORLD MADE ME RAPE 23 WOMEN (</STRONG>and one man<STRONG>) IN A RETIREMENT HOME! NOW I’M GONNA GO SHOOT UP A GRADE SCHOOL! BABA BOOEY! BABA BOOEY!</STRONG></P>
<P>M: I wanted to do that.</P>
<P>I: You took my toilet joke, limey. Deal with it.</P></DIV><p><hr size=1><font face=arial size=-1>Do you Yahoo!?<br>
Yahoo! Tax Center - <a href="http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html">File online by April 15th</a>
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