Music director Blake Nawa’a leads a score seeped in ‘70s disco and soul, and the choreography by Stephanie Prugh and Jeffrey Parizotto is utterly modern. Even the character Robin, played with high-energy skill by Melissa Morris, is never given the depth and insight her role demands.ĭirected by Ignite co-founder and artistic director Keith Rabin, the Fox show revels in the MTV-speak and constant bawdiness of Beane’s book. These roles have their moments, but the effect grows stale pretty quickly. Uardo and Cleonice (Devin Bustamante and Kristel Jelinek Brown) speak in overblown Latino accents, and as Cineseas, Tyler Nielsen talks in exaggerated hip-hop speak. Lysistrata is a strong enough lead, but her boyfriend Mick (played by Taylor Minckley) and the rest of the basketball team feel shallow and flighty. The cast comes off more as caricatures than three-dimensional characters. Despite a strong performance by Central City Opera vet Lindsey Falduto as Lysistrata Jones and innovative moments of dance, song and comedy, the effort to turn ancient hip is too often labored.

The Ignite Theatre production of the show fully embraces this campiness.

The dialogue is campy, the action is overblown and allusions to Aristophanes’ play come alongside references to Joel Schumaker’s woeful take on the “Batman” film franchise. The writers cram plenty of pop-culture references into the adaptation of Aristophanes’ ancient story. Lysistrata Jones, a recent transfer to fictional Athens University, finds inspiration in Aristophanes’ classical work and convinces her fellow cheerleaders to turn frigid in order to inspire their boyfriends on the Spartans team to play better. Here, the title character leads the abstinence charge in order to end a college basketball team’s long-standing losing streak. Their 2011 comedy “Lysistrata Jones,” currently running for a short two-week stint on the Aurora Fox main stage, transports Aristophanes’ basic idea to a modern setting. The Ignite Theatre production of “Lysistrata Jones” by Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn is a modern twist on an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes.

Modern lysistrata