Aristophanes was making fun of something in The Clouds. His play is the first in the world which is a comedy of ideas. Can you imagine if Aristophanes had not invented this form? In the play, a man places his son in an academy called a "thinkery", the "Phrontisterion"to learn how to think because he is in debt to many creditors. Ah, if we had such schools today. But, I digress. And, the school fails miserably but that is another discussion.
The point of the comedy was to make fun of the intellectual life of Athens. It would be as if we were writing a play about the Nobel Prize committee. What is the point of comedy? To shine a light on the foibles of humans, on revealing the silliness of some societies in certain areas and to correct by fun.
That this play was not popular at first is obvious. Who wants a social critic in the capitol? But the point of the artist, and in this case, one of the best in the world, is that we must look with love and reality on ourselves in order to better ourselves.
It is not an anti-intellectual play, but criticizes the false use of intellectualism. Also, in the original, it is thought that the Clouds, the deities who are the patrons of thinkers, came in singing, like chorus girls. Hence, the making of this play into a musical.
If we cannot laugh at ourselves, we are doomed to extinction. I always thought the dinosaurs ended their long reign because they could not smile or laugh. But, then, they had no immortal souls. Those of us who are artists must be able to stand back and laugh. Not merely in derision, but in the quiet knowledge that we all fall short of the glory of God.
By the way, in the Genesius production, Plato was added to the philosopher Socrates just for fun.......
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| Supertradson on the left; 2008 |
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| Supertradson second from left as Plato in The Clouds |
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| Supertradson as Plato in The Clouds; 2008 |
