"Boycott" updates familiar Greek comedy

Author: Emma Stanford

Last Friday Middlebury students and community members alike flocked to "The Boycott," the inaugural production sponsored by Middlebury College in the recently renovated Town Hall Theater. The show cast a new and whimsical light on an issue that lies near the hearts of many Middlebury students: climate change.

"The Boycott," written and performed by touring actress Kathryn Blume, is based on Aristophanes' play "Lysistrata," in which a band of Spartan women led by the title character attempt to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex. In Blume's adaptation, the central action revolves around Lyssa Stratton, First Lady of the United States. The issue at hand is global warming instead of war, and Blume led the audience on a giddy adventure punched up by talking frogs, hazes of absinthe and a scene in Congress where a construction of foam, softballs and pantyhose illustrated the senators' sexual frustration. "Open scene," Blume shouted gleefully, waving her prop on high, "and insert giant phallus!"

The lavish and expensive renovations of Town Hall Theater were completed just seven weeks ago, and it was clear Friday night that the new performance space has already found its niche in the community. Audience members arrived early to soak in the eccentric and utilitarian stage set, where a collection of chairs, tables and plastic storage bins reminded college students of their own dorm rooms. When Blume swaggered onstage, she began with a classic opener.

"Once upon a time," she said. "I've always loved that beginning. When you hear that you know it's time to settle in for something good."

Blume did not disappoint. She punched up her pell-mell comic storyline as a would-be screenplay, complete with cameos of famous actors and a musical score pirated from "Lord of the Rings" and "Mission: Impossible." As the sole performer, Blume portrayed a dozen different characters, dashing from one side of the stage to another to capture each perspective. She was most convincing as her good-natured lead, Lyssa Stratton. Lyssa, wife of swinging President Jack Stratton, is rudely awakened to the climate crisis by an ambassador from a small island nation. After going on a bender fueled by Abraham Lincoln's hidden stash of absinthe, Lyssa resolves to confront global warming in her own way: a nationwide sex strike. Her campaign lobbies the President to take aggressive measures against global warming, drawing activists all across the country. The result is a phenomenon of national abstinence that affects America in some surprising ways. In time, of course, the President caves in, the planet is saved and the camera pans out on a global love-fest.

Unfortunately, standards of comedy have grown subtler since the days of Aristophanes, and Blume's determination to entertain grew tiresome. The show would have been better without the number of comic accents, suggestive props and grating references to "The Princess Bride." The play was saved, however, by Blume's decision to juxtapose its plotline with a memoir of her own journey as as activist. After every sexual innuendo or Secret Service joke, the stage lights came up and she told the audience about her doubts that a theater performance could stop global warming. Later, she entered a hysterical tailspin describing the predicament of buying groceries: plastic bags, paper bags, canvas bags and organic canvas bags.

"Look at me!" she shrieked, dropkicking one of her plastic storage bins. "I'm doing this show, and I've got plastic on the stage!" When she sensed that the audience was nearing emotional overload, she squatted on a table with her cheeks puffed out and said, as her character Iniga Frogtoya, "You killed my planet. Prepare to die."

In the end it was not the pop culture gimmicks or the funny voices that made the show compelling, but Blume's earnest concern about climate change. Flitting between giddy parody and wide-eyed sincerity, she hammered home her cause from every possible angle, desperate to convey its urgency. She was, of course, preaching to the choir, here in Vermont. But after Lyssa Stratton got her happy ending and the world was put to rights, there were few in the audience who could doubt Blume's faith in our planet's potential for "blazing, unquenchable hope."