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As irreverent and bawdy as Aristophanes, but with more accessible humor, this pseudo-biography juxtaposes elements of Aristophanic plays with the activities of contemporaneous people to show how Aristophanes became the father of political satire and why his theatrical innovations are still staples of the contemporary theatre. Aristophanes is shown as an artist living on the edge, who uses comedy to mock his enemies and wages a one-man campaign against those Athenians who revel in war and death; he is set off against his son, who wants to write to entertain; a coldly rational Socrates; Cephisophon, the Laurence Olivier of ancient Greece; the dictator, Cleon; and Aristophanes’ skeptical mother, who prefers tragedy to comedy. Caution: contains sexual situations. (52 minutes)
