Who is are the chorus in Aristophanes Frogs?

Why is Aristophanes play called The Frogs?

445 – c. 385 BCE), the most famous of the comic playwrights of ancient Greece. Named after the creatures who composed the play’s chorus, it won first prize at the dramatic festival at Lenaea in 405 BCE and, proving to be successful, it would later be performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens.

How long is the Frogs by Aristophanes?

The average reader will spend 4 hours and 16 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).

Who wrote the play The Frog?

Nathan Lane
Burt Shevelove
The Frogs/Playwrights

What happens at the end of the frogs?

In the end, Dionysus opts for the longer journey across a lake, the same route Heracles himself once took. They arrive at the Acheron and the ferryman Charon ferries Dionysus across, although Dionysus is obliged to help with the rowing (Xanthias, being a slave, has to walk around).

How does Dionysus disguise get him in trouble?

Because Heracles had made a few enemies when he had been in the Underworld (namely to steal the dog Cerberus), Dionysus’ disguise actually ends up getting him into trouble, rather than protecting him from danger as planned. Panicked, Dionysus gets his slave Xanthias to put on the Heracles disguise instead.

Are Frogs musical?

The Frogs is a musical “freely adapted” by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove from The Frogs, an Ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes. The show was produced on Broadway in 2004 with the book revised by Nathan Lane and the score expanded by Sondheim. This was revived in London in 2017.

What is the theme of the frogs?

The underlying theme of “The Frogs” is essentially “old ways good, new ways bad”, and that Athens should turn back to men of known integrity who were brought up in the style of noble and wealthy families, a common refrain in Aristophanes’ plays.

What is the message of Bacchae?

The Bacchae depicts a struggle to the death between the twin forces of control (restraint) and freedom (release), and permits Dionysus to provide an answer to this question.

Why did Dionysus go to the underworld?

Dionysos descended into the underworld to bring his mother Semele (and perhaps also his wife Ariadne) back from the dead.

What nationality is Nathan Lane?

American
Nathan Lane/Nationality

Nathan Lane, original name Joseph Lane, (born February 3, 1956, Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.), American stage, film, and television actor, best known for his work in musical comedies, notably the Broadway production of The Producers.

What is a Sondheim musical?

Stephen Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist that has been active in musical theatre since 1954. With a catalogue including West Side Story, Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd, Sondheim was once named one of the greatest lyricists ever by Cameron Mackintosh.

Why did Aristophanes name his frogs the frogs?

Aristophanes chose them for the chorus since many people in his audience would have personal initiatory experience from their own journeys to Eleusis. Like the two choruses, the character of Dionysus, the comedic hero of the play, is in a state of flux.

What did Hope Mirrlees quote from the frogs chorus?

In her underrated modernist long poem Paris (1920), the British poet Hope Mirrlees quotes from the frogs’ chorus, shortly before offering an allusion to another Aristophanes play, Lysistrata. That was another play written against the backdrop of war, just as Mirrlees was writing in the wake of the recent conflict that was the First World War.

Why are there two choruses in the frogs?

The two choruses in the Frogs, the Frogs and the Initiates, are one of the many signals to the audience that the main theme of the play is transformation, since both groups change their physical or spiritual selves during their lifetimes.

When was the first performance of the frogs?

First performed in 405 BC at the Lenaea—an annual Athenian festival in honor of Dionysus — The Frogs is one of Aristophanes’ comic masterpieces.