0:04 Who are you and where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to Jiggers's Place. I'm your host Kevin Demel and let's see, I'm here every other Thursday, every other week. uh to so we can uh as the week comes to a close have a cocktail and a schmoo and uh this is my uh first
0:41 postJ holiday uh Jiggers's place. I did one uh mid holidays I believe as I recall and uh uh so it's it's uh now we're heading into the um the sort of regular fall holidays. Halloween is next week, Thanksgiving next month, and on into Christmas and and the new year. So, uh, today we're going to be talking about Greek drama. And you may be thinking to yourself, isn't life dramatic enough without putting getting the Greeks into it? Well, maybe so. But
1:17 um Greek drama, the comedy, the tragedy of it, it can it will take us away from all the vicissitudes of contemporary life, especially when we talk about it over a cocktail. So, uh with my co cocktail co-creator, Chat GPT, I came up with a cocktail called the tragic chorus. And it is an uzo based cocktail. So uzo is
1:53 a very popular Greek liquor. It's it is not a liquor. Uh it is it is a distilled uh liquor just like vodka and gin and whiskey for that matter and rum. In this case, it's distilled from annis. And in that respect, it's part of a larger family of of liquors, including arc, which is very popular in the Middle East, in northern Africa. Uh um paste,
2:29 which is very popular in France, particularly in the south of France. Uh and it's a wonderful beverage. It's a wonderful liquor. Uh, and also, um, I'm sort of going up on it. Absin. Um, which is abbisonin is is popular more kind of in in Germany, Switzerland and and and those countries. And then of course there are Addis uh liquors as well. So they all fit into the same
3:06 family. And uh this this particular uzo is uzo by mataka. Uh it happens to be certified kosher kosher in grease is the certifier. Uh but like like all liquor that's not artificially flavored and colored. Uh and you can see this is clear. It looks blue, but that's the color of the bottle. Uh most people hold it does not have to have a kosher certification. So that's one ingredient. And then we have some honey syrup which is just uh a mixture of 50% honey, 50%
3:44 uh uh water. Like like all syrup, simple syrup is is merely a mixture of 50% sugar, 50% water. The honey I used I I got from my friend Violet who incidentally is also my tailor, a lovely woman. uh she just uh newly wed and uh you know wishing her and her husband a very wonderful long life together. I saw her wedding pictures earlier today and u you know all we men need to be jealous. She looked like Grace Kelly especially in one picture where she was kind of looking over her shoulder. Uh but I
4:21 digress. Um and then then there's lemon juice. This is fresh squeezed. a little um appperol or amaro. This this is appperol. This this has a kosher certification. Appperol is a lur so it does need a kosher certification if you're going if you're keeping kosher. And then uh some orange bitters in this case agura. And I've got my uh lemon peel for um for a garnish. So we're going to start out with an ounce and a half of uzo. And I I have I've never had
4:58 um a cocktail um made with with uzo. So this will be this will be a a nice experiment. Let's see. One, two, three. There we go. Okay. So there's our uzo. And then I've already measured out the honey syrup. It's half an ounce of honey syrup. Yum. and half an ounce of of uh of lemon juice. I have enough
5:33 there. Yep. Oh, perfect. Okay. Lemon juice. And a quarter of an ounce of appperol. Apparel is is kind of it's kind of a bitter liquor. Uh that's why you can substitute amaro as well. Let's see. So, it's going to be about Yeah, that's that's about right. It has the the red color, so it's going to, I think, give the drink just a little bit of a pinkish uh color when it because it's going to get diluted. Okay. And um a dash of orange bitters.
6:11 There we go. Okay. I already have my ice in my shaker, as you might imagine. Okay. So, we're going to shake it. got a little lumpy apart. And as I always mentioned, we're shaking it not just to mix everything, but also to let some of the water um let some of the ice dilute, and the water brings out the uh the flavors in the various ingredients. So, you see the shaker's getting nice and frosty. [Music]
6:49 And that should be about good. I've got my my small uh rocks glass. A rocks glass is is like this. It's as it's essentially as tall as it is uh in circumference. Okay. You can use a coupe as well. I I use coupe so often I decided to use a rocks glass this time. Pour this out. Oh, and it looks kind of like pink lemonade. That is wild. That's beautiful. I don't know if you can Can you Can you Yeah, you can see this. See, it's got a nice pink color. And I'm going to
7:24 garnish it with a lemon twist. I'm going to drop it in because it's such nice flavor. And here we go for the grand test. Oh, yeah. It's actually Oh, you can smell the uzo. It's wonderful. Wow, that this is a great mix of flavors. I hope you get a chance to mix the cocktails along with me. Um, if you are wondering how to get the recipes, so all you need to do is go to my website,
8:00 be theml.com, subscribe to my mailing list, and then you will get the recipes the morning of a show. And that way you have time to sort of pull the ingredients together. But if you watch the show with any regularity, you see the kind of things I use regularly. Always keep a a lemon on hand. Obviously ice. Just some basic bar equipment. A shaker, a mixing glass, and a uh a strainer and a bar spoon. And and and then just, you know, Angura
8:37 bitters and Angura orange bters. Sometimes I use fancier stuff, but almost always I'm substituting for Angura, which is kind of the go-to bitters. And then, you know, a nice a nice vodka, a nice gin, a nice rum, uh couple of whisies, and you've got most of what you need. And then once in a while, you may have to pick up something else. Okay. So, uh, cheers. I'll meet you over on the couch.
9:42 So, I'm here. I'm surrounded by my pillows now. Uh I I I've talked about this before. One of my favorite home furnishing stores went out of business and I bought several pillows there, including these these, you know, spherical pillows. So, this sits here. They're fun to play with, you know. Uh, what can I say? Uh, and then I was at the farmers market last Sunday and there's a lady there who makes vintage quilts. I'm not going to pull the quilt out. You wouldn't be able to anyway. But anyway, she had these
10:17 vintage pillows. I'm going hold this up real close. This one is themed for California. It's got all sorts of different California attractions. You can see Mickey Mouse. It's Disneyland. And here's the Santa Barbara mission where uh when I graduated from high school, we had a service and oil fields in Bakersfield and Yusede National Park and the Capitol and the Redwoods, all these things. So, um if you get to the Mar Vista uh uh farmers market, uh look for she's not there every week, but look
10:53 for the lady who sells the the vintage uh quilts. Uh, her name is uh I think it's Elizabeth. I'm hoping I'm remembering it correctly. And uh and you can you can tell her, "Hey, I I saw you on I saw you on Jiggers's place, Kevin's show." And she'll go, "Kevin, who's that?" Um, if she saw me, she would remember me, but u but she I she would probably wouldn't remember my name. Anyway, okay. First of all, another sip of cocktail. Gosh,
11:28 it's a really great mix of flavors because you get the the tartness and the sweetness of the lemon and the uh honey syrup first and you get the finish of the aniset of the uzo. So good. Okay, so Greek dramas. These are most of my Greek dramas. Um and you can see they include uh Uripides and Sophocles and Akilus. Uh this is the Oresta uh I'm
12:07 sorry the Orestia Roasta uh which is uh his most famous. Here's Uripides. I have two and four. There's obviously a one and a three and and actually a five. And then these are the complete plays of Aristophanes. So uh and and these are by these aren't all of of the Greek dramat or the Greek um uh yeah dramatists um but these are pro these are the best known among them and um I just just for a moment there's
12:42 so many great additions out there. So the lobe classical library that's what this is you see in in the green covers um they do not only the Greek dramas they did you know all the great works of the western cannon they were originally published in 1911 so over a hundred years ago they're very small they're easy to travel with which I think was part of the point of them um because you know back a hundred years ago uh you know people would read and reread the classics,
13:17 you know, and and so it was uh it was really handy to uh you know, for them to be small. And you'll notice that on one side is English and on the other is the original Greek. So these these are really wonderful additions. You can I don't they're not I don't think they're still in print, but you can still find them on Amazon. And then there's this is just a a uh paperback. I got this when I was in I think junior high school. Uh this is the complete plays of Sophocles. Um and uh um Sophocles wrote more than
13:55 120 plays. Only seven have survived. So then um this is another series called the complete Greek tragedies. And if you look on the back, this this shows you all the different ones. This may be too hard to read, but a skylus, sophocles, and Uripides. Um, there's two volumes of a skylus. Uh, two of Sophocles and four of Uripides. So, I have a Skylus one, and I have Uripides. I mentioned two and four. These are also, um, you know, really great. They're small. They're because they're paperback, they're lightweight, they're easy to read,
14:33 and they they typically have an introduction by by an academic who knows them well. I got these in in junior high or high school as well. And then this is a more uh contemporary uh edition. This is the complete works of Aristophanes. It's part of the uh new American library which also like um like the lobe classical library um they don't do just the Greek dramas but all a wide range of uh books in the uh America in
15:10 the western cannon. Um but this is this is also a nice addition. Uh it it's it's a little big for traveling even even though even paperback it's still kind of heavy for traveling but it's nice to have all the plays and if you want to read all of them this is a a relatively inexpensive alternative as opposed to buying them you know two or three at a time uh which is which is more more expensive you have to buy more books um and I I read this um this is I just a few months ago I think I got uh Aristophanes
15:45 So um you know that that's that's the biblio biblophile side of me is all these you know beautiful books. I will say of if I had room in my library I I would get mostly the uh low classical library editions. These these are so beautiful. Um they're so well done. I I love little books that I can put throw in my suitcase when I travel. I'm starting to do a little more traveling now and um and and and they're just so they're so beautifully done. Um the the
16:20 translations are not going to seem uh as as accessible to the modern ear, but from my perspective, you know, Greek drama was written, you know, over 2,000 years ago. So I don't know if it should sound right to the contemporary ear because I I doubt that even in the idiom of the day, you know, Greek sounded the way we speak English. So I'm going to talk about several of the most uh well-known Greek dramas and comedies.
16:58 So you get a little bit of a feeling of the variety, the depth, and just how wonderful uh these plays are. So I think I'm going to talk about eight of them. Yeah, I've got eight. And let's see. I don't think I have any. Oh, yeah, I do have Uripides. Yeah. So I think these I mean these are all ones that I've read. uh but um there are others. These are the probably the best known. So let's start out with uh Sophocles.
17:35 Okay. And and talk about the play Edipus Rex. Of course, Rex means king. And the plot is is that King Edipus seeks to rid thieves of a plague. Thieves was a a city in in in ancient Greece. um only discover that he has unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. Now, uh that's where you um have if you've ever heard of the Edipus complex for a like a boy who's just infatuated
18:12 with his mother, that's where that comes from. It comes from uh Edipus Rex. So uh the themes of the play are fate versus free will. Right? This is a discussion that continues to this time. Okay. So um Edipus Rex was written um you know in in the u fifth century uh BCE before the common era. So we're talking 2500 years ago. uh this this you
18:48 know theme was or this play was written and the theme is the theme of the play fate versus free will is still discussed today and the reason I can say that is because I have periodic discussions about this with my friend Michael and we are just reflective I think of um of an of an issue that it continues to be debated um you know in the current times. Okay. Also knowledge versus ignorance and
19:24 guilt and responsibility. Right? So without getting into the details of the play, none of these plays are very long. If you can imagine this this book is about 250 pages and there's seven plays in it. So, you know, you're talking about what like 35 pages per play essentially. So, you can see they're not very long, which is also one of the things that makes them so fun to read is you can read one of these plays in an hour. Okay? So, very very fast. Uh and
20:02 if you can imagine, you know, a man who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, how he would feel, what he might do. So all of all of those emotional issues are dealt with in the play. And Edipus Rex stands as an archetypal tragedy in drama to this day. Now, I would venture to say there's not many people to whom it's happened that they,
20:37 you know, god forbid, kill their father and marry their mother. Uh, nonetheless, tragedy is is a factor of human existence. And so to read about how King Edipus deals with this grave tragedy gives us insight into how we might deal with a situation where we do something and as a result feel guilty or we do something and and perhaps
21:13 struggle with the demand or need to take responsibility for our action and and this is why these plays remain relevant today. Okay. So that's Edipus Rex. Uh also in Sophocles, Antiggony, right? These names by the way, you know, they redown throughout literature. Another reason to read uh Greek Greek plays is because you will find throughout the western cannon and
21:48 even in contemporary literature illusions or even direct references to characters, plots, etc. that are a part of Greek drama. So um in Antiggony, Antiggony is a woman. Don't know if that would be obvious from the name, but but she is. So she defies uh King Creon um and buries her brother according to divine law um facing death as a punishment. So again, I want to get into all the fine fine points of the plot,
22:25 but for for very for you know, King Creon did not want her uh did not want Antiggony's brother buried with the proper u you know uh ceremonies surrounding uh a funeral and death. and Antiggony who dearly loved her brother but not in any weird way as my dear Marie would say uh wanted to honor her brother with a proper burial and so on pain of execution she nonetheless buries her brother with the proper ceremony. So
23:00 uh one of the enduring themes again I think as current today as it was 2500 years ago is moral duty versus the law of the state. Right? I think we often u make an equivalence between the two. If it's legal it must be moral. If it's illegal it must be immoral. But as I've talked about in a one of the shows, one of one of the episodes of Jiggers's Place, moral and legal are not the same thing.
23:35 There are oftentimes things that are legal that that are immoral and there are things that are illegal that are they're not certainly not immoral. Okay. Uh um let's see things that are um legal that are immoral. Uh prostitution. Okay. Um uh pornography. These are you know immoral. Um but they well prostitution is illegal. Uh but but
24:10 pornography is is is legal but it it it is uh immoral. uh especially when you consider that um oftentimes the women are um not really aware of what they're doing or or they're being taken advantage of, that sort of thing. Um so, so legal but immoral. uh illegal but moral uh uh would be um for example well cigarette smoking isn't isn't completely illegal. U but there's nothing immoral about smoking cigarettes. It's unhealthy
24:46 to be sure but it's not immoral. Uh but in many places cigarette smoking is essentially outlawed. So I was at Sofi Stadium on Sunday and there is no place in the stadium where smoking is allowed. Now that's not technically that's not illegal because it's not a state law that does that. That's the policy of the facility. But in in many ways uh state governments have been pressing uh to make uh smoking sort of quasi
25:23 illegal. Prohibition was a case where something was made illegal, liquor and drinking, that was not immoral. Now, one might argue drinking to excess and the things that happen as a result of somebody being drunk are immoral. I think that's a that's a good point to discuss. That's a bourbon conversation, as I say. But there's nothing inherently immoral about drinking. In fact, if you look at the Bible, oftentimes characters drink wine and for very good reasons, right? So, so it's it's a it's a
25:59 contemporary issue uh e even as it was discussed 2500 years ago. Okay. And then there's other issues like loyalty. Antiggony being loyal to her brother and civil disobedience which again she in being loyal to her brother she was uh being civily disobedient right because King Crean didn't want her to do it and and in a monarchy what the king wants is
26:35 law basically um and again we we can see this issue of civil disobedience going on today whether it was the BLM riots, whether it's the, you know, no kings protests, all these things. There are people who say that they're, you know, that they're absolutely necessary. And there are people who will say that they're uh, you know, they're they're illegal, they're destructive, right? Um, so are they civil disobedience or civil disobedience or are they rioting? Right? Um, do they
27:10 start out one and cross over into another? So all all of those issues remain current today. And so Antiggony represents an early exploration of ethical uh conflict early in the in the western cannon. Uh and and and and you'll hear this numerous times in this show. It it is it is absolutely timeless. Okay. Um and it and it really remains a cornerstone of of political and philosophical discussions. Okay. So that that's Sophocles. I think that I
27:46 think those are the only two I'm going to talk about from Sophocles. Yes. Okay. So next we're going to move on to Uripides. I can't and I can never hear Uripides name with uh there's a I believe it's a Marx Brothers joke. Uripides. Uripides what Uripides pages out of the book right so big fan of the of of the Marx brothers so okay so uh in Uripides uh media uh again one of the best known uh
28:22 plays uh of Uripides and uh media who again is a woman um she's betrayed by her husband Jason and she exacts revenge through murder. Hang on to your seat here. Including her own children. Okay. So, the themes betrayal, revenge, and the extremes of love and passion, right? Uh look, unfortunately, we still hear about cases today of mothers
28:59 murdering their children. um perhaps among the most heinous crimes that we can think of, right? And Medadia explores the the mindset of a woman who is uh is essentially driven to rage uh by her husband's betrayal and what it causes her to do. Uh and and again uh how many of us get through life without
29:35 being betrayed, right? How many of us having been betrayed have not at least felt the desire for revenge? Although, God forbid, you know, revenge like like media took it. Uh and and so you know again there's there's a timelessness to the issues discussed in this play. So uh media is shocking. It was shocking even by the stand even even in at the time it was was written. uh and and the
30:11 the the psychologically complex uh tragedy of of media is it was the case then it remains the case now. And then um uh you know we tend to think of and it is really it is the case that most often murder is a crime committed by men but it is not solely committed by men and and there have been a number of famous uh female murderers throughout
30:47 history. Right? And so while women at least used to be referred to as the gentler sex uh you know beware a woman crossed I think okay so so that's uh that's media and then also in Uripides is the bake so um king penthus uh resists worship of Dionis uh who among among other things is the god of wine. Okay. Um leading to his
31:24 destruction by frenzied followers, right? Uh and um the themes of the bake are order versus chaos, the the the issue of divinity, godliness, if you will, human repression and ecstasy, right? So all of these are tied together by King Pintheus's uh trying to figure out what he wants and should do in the face of a restive
32:03 uh population. So it really like like really all of the Greek plays, the bake delves deeply into the psychological nature of human beings, the psychological nature of relationships in life. Right? So long before there was a Sigman Freud and and other writers on psychiatry and psychology, the Greeks were examining how human
32:40 beings face the challenges of life and they were really delving into all of these aspects. Okay. Uh and um uh the other theme of the bake is the consequences of defying so-called you know the so-called divine right so we see a similar theme in the Bible of course now the Greeks they were not a biblical people in in ancient
33:16 Greece uh but they were exploring at least some of the same ideas that are explored in the Old Testament, right? and and uh so uh it's it's you know having raised that it's an interesting sort of factoid as we call them that uh in in traditional Judaism when the Torah is the Torah which is the first five books of the uh of the Old Testament what what Christians call the Old Testament what Jews call the Hebrew
33:52 Bible. So when reading the weekly portion of the Torah on Saturday, in order for that reading to fulfill what's called hala, which is loosely translated Jewish law, the reading has to be done in Hebrew because that is the language in which it was written. However, there is one language in which it can be read. One language other than Hebrew in which it can be read that will still fulfill the mitzvah, the the the rules, if you
34:28 will, and that is Greece. Uh Greek. um the Greek language was considered so beautiful uh by the rabbitic authorities at that at that time that um they uh permitted uh a reading to be done in Greek and and still be considered to fulfill the commandment. So today to read the Torah portion in English by traditional Judaism would not fulfill the the mitzvah. Okay. But to this day, Hebrew and Greek would. Okay. So, that's
35:05 that's Uripides. All right. Next, Eskylus. Okay. And uh first of all, there's uh we're going to talk about Agamemnon. Okay. Uh Agamemnon was a king. And you notice there's a a lot of characters who are kings in Greek literature. That's because most of the little city states in Greece uh were at least initially ruled by kings. Democracy came on later in in uh you know the Greek period. Okay. So, uh,
35:42 King Agamemnon is returning from the Trojan War and he is murdered by his wife, um, uh, Nestra, um, as revenge for having sacrificed their daughter. So, if you're familiar with the Bible, of course, there's what's known as the Aadusak, where Abraham is called by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. He takes him up on the mountain and is prepared to do so, but God stays his hand. So we, you
36:19 know, this was a a lesson that God wanted to teach about the desiraability of sacrificing one's children and and it's a similar theme uh taken up in Agamemnon. Okay. Uh you know, was a skylus familiar with uh Hebrew scripture? I don't know. I'm not enough of a an escalist scholar to tell you that, but it is an interesting sort of parallel. And and and I will add, by the way, that
36:56 uh it's it's thought that the reason Sarah, Abraham's wife, died when she did was because uh the Sutton told her that Abraham had successfully sacrificed their son. and she was so distraught at the thought that she died. Now, of course, the Sutton Satan, he oftentimes tells lies to uh accomplish uh his his desires, right? And uh uh you know that was that was the case there. Okay. So
37:33 the themes of Agame Agamemnon, justice, revenge, fate, um, and and the the so-called cycle of violence, right? What what does, uh, Agamemnon's wife, uh, accomplish by murdering her husband? It's not going to bring her son, right? He's he still remains dead, right? So it it it examines all of those ideas. Um, and you can see revenge is is is kind of a it's a theme of a number of the Greek
38:08 dramas. Uh, and and be because it is such a human desire, the desire for revenge that people really we even we today need to understand. What do we do with that? What do we do with the desire to, you know, kind of give as good as we've gotten? Okay. Um, you know, can a society based on revenge survive, right? And that's that's that's it. Again, it's
38:44 sort of one of the broader themes of Greek drama and it's it is one of the themes in Agamemnon. So um the the significance of Agamemnon is it is the first play in the Orestia trilogy right so and that's that's I mentioned before this is this is the arrestia uh it's a it's a group of uh three plays Agamemnon the libation bearers and humanities okay those are the three plays um and it's really a foundational work in terms of uh western uh juristp
39:24 prudence um and the concept of tragedy um in in in western writing. Can't get over how good that cocktail is. Right. So that's uh that's a skylus. And then the other skyless play I want to talk about is Prometheus Bound. Now you may say, "Wait a minute, isn't that a book by like Iron Rand or somebody or is it Iron Rand?"
40:01 It there is another book called Prometheus Bound, but it was originally the title of a Greek play by Eskylus. It's not it's not in the arrestia. It's one of his It's in one of his other uh plays uh one of the other four four plays uh Extin of Skylus. Okay. So uh the plot Titan uh Prometheus is punished by Zeus who's of course the head of all the gods for giving fire to humanity and he suffers yet remains
40:37 defiant. Right? And again, you know, you can see some some common themes here. So, first of all, there's the theme of defiance um like with um uh antiggony, right? And knowledge uh versus authority, suffering, foresight, right? Was it a good idea for humanity to get fire? What have we done with it? Um I you know on par it would appear that we've done more good with it than evil but I think you know there would be some people who would debate that and again
41:13 let's grab a bourbon and let's talk about it. uh but uh those all of those themes are explored in Prometheus bound and its significance is it's it's really it stands as a symbol to the resistance of human progress. So the Leites probably find a lot a a lot with with which to relate in Zeus who you know is devoted to keeping humans as his play things um
41:50 as opposed to letting human society uh um progress and evolve. Okay. And it explores the sort of divine human conflict. Now uh of course the Greek perception of gods is very different than that in the uh in the you know Jewish Christian Muslim world. Uh you know Greece was not a monotheistic culture. It was a polytheistic culture. There's a whole pantheon of gods. Um, nonetheless,
42:30 certainly it's the case with Judaism and Christianity, and I I believe it's the case with Islam as well. We are a jurored to create a personal relationship with God. And that's a hard thing to do with a non-corporeal entity, right? God has no body. God has no sex. Uh even though we speak to him as he sometimes, although in Judaism certainly there's a she aspect of God or what's referred to in in the
43:05 in the feminine aspect of God. So how do we create a relationship with with the Almighty? And I think we can gain some insights from from Greek plays and especially from Prometheus bound. Okay. And then uh Okay. So that's that's the third of our authors. And then last is Aristophanes. Now I've been talking about dramas. Uh Aristophanes
43:41 wrote comedic Greek plays. So if if you're a little concerned about reading something heavy, start out with Aristophanes. He is hilarious by the standards of today. He is hilarious. Uh he's clever both in language and in plot. Uh just just marvelous marvelous uh uh comedy here. So there's uh Lys Strata is is the first of the two I'm going to talk about. So wi the women uh led by Lis Strata decide
44:19 to withhold sex to force their men to end the Pelpeneisian war. Brilliant, right? And and you can you you know the the battle of the sexes continues to this very moment, right? It's it started 2500 years ago, still going on today. So the themes are of course war and peace, right? The pel pelpeneisian war, bloody war, horrible
44:56 and and and went on for a long long time. Okay. Power between the between the sexes and also it's a satire of politics, right? And a lot of the comedy comes from that satire. Now, you don't have to know a whole lot about how Greek city states were governed to appreciate the satire because again, it's it's satarizing politicians and people in positions of p, you know, governance and power and we have all that today, right? And so, you
45:31 you can well appreciate uh the the humor in Lisa Strada. Okay? So, uh, you know, if you're if you're thinking, well, maybe I'll dip my toe into the water of Greek plays, start with Lys Strada, okay? And and I think you will enjoy it. You may even get hooked on it and then you'll be motivated to read others. And then the the final play I'm going to talk about is uh The Clouds, also by Aristophanes. And again, it's a it's a comedy.
46:06 So, Strepziites enrolls his h his son in Socrates's thinkery. Isn't that a great word? Thinkery, right? To avoid debt um leading to chaos and a satire of intellectual pretensions. Seen any pretentious intellectuals of late? I mean, come on. again 2500 years ago today uh too many intellectuals are or extraordinarily pretentious right and
46:44 so Aristophanes pokes jabs at them you don't again you don't need to know what did you know what did uh uh Socrates how did Socrates behave what was his you don't need to know any of it there are pompous intellectuals today just like there was in ancient Greece. So the themes of uh of of the clouds, education, reason versus folly, and generational conflict between the father and son. Right? Again, uh generational conflict is as old as human existence.
47:22 And one doesn't have to have any knowledge of Greek society to appreciate the humor that comes out of the uh interactions uh between Strepziites and his son. So um the clouds is one of the earliest surviving Greek comedies uh critiquing uh philosophical and governance trends uh in in Athens. Um and Aristophanes won several uh awards
47:58 in his day uh for his plays. um he was bitingly satirical about other playwrights that were popular during you know contemporary to him. It's also very very funny uh because this sort of rivalry among creatives again it goes on today and and you don't you don't need anything about any of the other writers to appreciate how you know one one writer will uh you know want to uh
48:33 egregiously uh satarize uh his his competitors. So, um I just want to wrap up real quickly um by by talking about or summarizing really the the kind of uh thematic issues with which Greek drama, Greek plays deal. Um and we talked about some of them, but I made some notes about others. I want to make sure I I I cover them for you. So, first of all, it's it is a timeless exploration of human nature. We we we talked about that already. Um it's it's a source of moral
49:09 and ethical reflection and we talked about uh that as well. Um the idea of fate versus responsibility. I I we mentioned I think in one of the plays but that is a broader theme. Uh another is Greek d Greek plays both comedies and dramas really stand as the foundation for western theater. So if you have if you enjoy any kind of theater whether
49:47 it's contemporary musical theater, classical music musical theater dramas um I talked about uh oh I talked about one particular play a while not too long ago uh waiting for GDAU right was very it was very contemporary for its time very different than traditional drama. If you like any of those, Greek theater are is their antecedent. And so it will dramatically enrich your
50:23 enjoyment of these other forms of theater by reading and understanding uh some aspects of of Greek theater. Okay. Um it gives political and and social insight. We were just talking about the clouds. You can see from the earliest uh period of Greek theater that was the case. Psychological depth. I mentioned that. Okay. Uh and and this is I I I haven't mentioned this yet and that's why I wanted to make sure I covered my list is I think we gained some cultural and
50:58 historical appreciation. So I was talking to a friend of mine who was telling me that he only reads non-fiction. And I think that's a shame. Uh, not that there's anything wrong with reading non-fiction. It's a it's great to read non-fiction. It's great to read history. But his historical non-fiction doesn't give us a complete picture of how people live their lives, behave,
51:34 just how they were. Okay? And Greek theater fills in a part of the cultural and historical picture that built Western society in a way that non-fiction cannot because Greek Greek drama and comedies deal with the emotional the spiritual and they're seeking emot emotional and spiritual psychological depth.
52:12 So they really expand our understanding in a way that non-fiction just cannot. And then finally, much of theater is about technique, the entering and exiting of the actors and actresses, of how props and scenery work, of how the stage is set, all of these kind of things. And again for anyone and this may be you who
52:49 uh enjoys theater or maybe like me you're you're passionate about theater to have a sense of how the conventions of theater were built makes our appreciation of it even deeper. And those conventions have as their foundation Aristophanes and Eskilus and Uripides and Sophocles. And so I encourage you to
53:25 read some Greek theater. Like I said, start with Lysrada. Maybe go from Lysrada to the clouds and then having a couple of comedies under your belt. then start looking at some dramas unless you you really you really want to like you know you want a meaty sandwich in which to to indulge. So then start with start with the dramas. But I can't encourage you enough to give uh Greek theater a try and if you have a chance to see it performed, go. That's all I can tell you is go.
54:00 I've been looking around for opportunities to see it here in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not a huge theater town the way, for example, New York is. Um, but but I I'm I'm looking for opportunities to go. I've only seen, I think, one or two Greek plays performed in the theater. I'm thinking about talking to a friend of mine who is a theater director and seeing if there's some way we can do some of these plays or something so people can see them. But that's a that's a discussion for another day. So, uh, a toast to Greek theater,
54:39 a toast to this cocktail, and a toast to you. Thank you so much for joining me. I wish you a lovely rest of the evening, a restful and restorative weekend, and I hope to see you next week on um my other shows and signing off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.