Confederate Wing

While I think my side of the argument adequately summarizes the gist of what Bill C-36 and the controversy thereof is about, I just want to say that I found it difficult to take the negative side. Given the person I am and the ideas I consume and am exposed to on a daily basis, you’d think I’d reject the very notion of increasing police authority, and yet I find myself more for than against the bill, since I was forced off my comfy fence of indifference. As a rule, I hate bureaucracy, and anything that makes matters simpler, more effective, and more efficient is alright by me. In the same way I hate standing in long lines at inefficient and hyper convoluted offices, I’m sure police hate having to fill out the tedious paperwork before they’re legally allowed to do their job. So I debated against the position I support… how’s that for an exercise?

This is already on the newspaper website, complete with a poll with which you can vote for the winning argument. In other news, I’ve already finished the next installment of my new Indie Game Spotlight column, and I’m beginning to wonder just what my newspaper colleagues think of me. Seriously, check out page 6 of this week’s issue (either in print or in the PDF)… Strangely, I find the headline “BELOVED WEB EDITOR, CRUCIVERBALIST, LATIN SCHOLAR shares first beer with SAM ROBERTS” more troubling than flattering. I’m generally a modest person, and that sort of audacity makes me a tad bit uneasy.

Con Bill C-36

In the aftermath of the horrors of 9/11, the very real and continued threats of terrorism forced governments worldwide to consider the balance between national vigilance and human rights. That is to say, how much liberty can we afford to sacrifice – if any – for the sake of security?

Our response was the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act, which included certain controversial clauses that dramatically increase police powers, namely “preventative detention” and “investigative hearing.” The former enables police to detain suspects for up to 72 hours without a warrant, while the latter enables a judge to imprison witnesses if they refuse being forced to testify in secret.

These are extreme measures which severely undermine the freedoms of individual citizens. Fortunately these particular clauses are called into review every three years and have been expired since 2007. However Prime Minister Harper now wants to reintroduce them, claiming that certain realities of the world in which we now live justify having the potential to exercise security measures beyond ethical protocol, should the situation demand it.

However, it must be noted that over the years when the preventative detention clause was available, it was never employed. So why exactly is it necessary now? Indeed, the world has changed in the ten years since 9/11; it’s proven that these extreme security measures have no place in Canada.

The potential exists for preventative detention to be abused more than used justifiably. Last summer’s G20 in Toronto demonstrated that even capable authorities can mishandle extraordinary powers, a precedent that proves the allowance of aggressive preemptive measures does more harm than good.

With that, let us remember the words of Benjamin Franklin: “Any society that would give up a little liberty for a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

I’ve been quite busy lately. Professors have already been sending me assignments before I officially head back to class next week, we’re working on cleaning up the newspaper office and getting ready for a new year, and Minecraft 1.8 is set to ruin my life. So yeah, busy busy busy.

To cap it all off, I conducted an interview with Canadian rock star Sam Roberts yesterday, of which I’m quite proud. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve done journalism wise so far (I had a beer with a rock star in a shiny tour bus during U of T’s frosh week), so I’m working extra hard not to screw up this coverage. The interview was 20 minutes long, which yielded a 3600 word long transcription taking two hours to complete. I’ve just edited and formatted the whole thing, and posted it below with intermittent photos of the event. The full recording of the interview is also posted below, which means you can listen to my decidedly un-radio-friendly voice questioning a down-to-earth/head-in-the-clouds rock star. By the way, the recording is bookended by some Sam Roberts music. Hopefully I don’t get sued.

This package (photos, audio, and transcription) will be posted in full on the newspaper website shortly. A trimmed version will also be printed in the Thursday issue, which hopefully should generate some decent web traffic.

There’s other things to mention too, but I’ve got so much to do right now. I’ll just leave you with the fact that I’ve got back on Twitter in an effort to maximize the web presence of the newspaper. There is something of a master plan to this, primarily involving other editors and contributors getting blogs/columns/twitter accounts all linked into www.thenewspaper.ca, but I’ve learned not to be too optimistic about dramatic change and improvement happening overnight (if at all).

By the way, the audio of the actual interview (not my crappy introduction during the lead in music, which used my Corsair headset) was recorded with a voice recorder that had no means to extract the data digitally. So it’s pretty poor quality and the volume is quite low, unfortunately. Audible, sure, but not ideal. Sorry about that. Hopefully I’ll be sure to use a proper mic and Audacity on my laptop for next time.

the newspaper interviews Sam Roberts!

As part of U of T’s frosh week and the orientation festivities hosted by UTSU, Canadian rock star Sam Roberts performed a free concert at the back campus behind University College on Friday, September 9. Touring in support of his recently released album “Collider,” the set was mainly focused on new material while still offering some classic cuts such as “Brother Down” and “Don’t Walk Away Eileen.”

We managed to sit down with Sam Roberts for a beer and a quick interview, in which we discuss his new album, the perks of playing campus crowds, the Canadian rock and roll dream, and what politics can do to a president’s hair.

Here is the full transcription of this interview. Additionally, a full recording of it can be heard below.

the newspaper: Is this your first time at U of T?

Sam Roberts: No, it’s not. We played here on this exact field nine years ago in September 2002, almost to the date. And it was our first gig that I can actually remember getting paid for and not losing money on it.

This was before “We Were Born in a Flame,” right?

This was right after “The Inhuman Condition” was released and we were just starting to break-in in Canada. And we were also preparing. The Tragically Hip had just asked us to go out on their national tour so we were trying to get as many gigs under our belt as possible so that we were ready for it. So this was going to be a great warm up show for us. We showed up and it’s really strange to be here because I don’t feel any older although I know we are; a full decade, almost. But we got up on that stage and there were about 22 people. We learned something then. We learn something every time we got up on stage from that point on. But we were just so excited that we got eight cases of beer or something like that, and it was part of our contract. We asked for it and they actually gave it to us. We were like, “Wow that’s amazing!” We had Labatt 50 and it felt really great. From here we just basically went out west. We started with The Tragically Hip and that’s when things really started to take off.

Do you play campus crowds and frosh weeks often?

I’d say we probably play about two or three a year. It could be anywhere. We could go out to the University of Alberta. We played them out in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. We’ve gone down to Maine and played them in the States as well. Western, that’s another school we played at a lot and we had some great frosh week gigs there as well. So this week in particular always seems to be dedicated to playing on campuses.

And you enjoy it, presumably?

I do. Because after a while, strangely enough, it just started to sink in that this often times is a person’s very first rock and roll show. Just because you’re 18 or 19 doesn’t mean you’ve been hitting the clubs. Music lovers, perhaps, and some people have, but for a lot of people this ends up being a real memory of sorts in that it’s their first time being exposed to live music. So with that comes a sense of responsibility all of sudden to make sure that these shows are good ones because you can make some lifelong fans playing these gigs.

Well that worked for me because you were one of my first rock and roll shows back in 2004 when you did the Toronto Islands with Sloan.

Yep. I remember that well. And that’s exactly my point. So often, that’s what these events are about. And you end up having people say, “I saw you in my frosh week 10 years ago and I’ve been following you ever since.” And more importantly you’re just turning them onto music in general at a time in their life when music is very important. It was very important to me when I was at university in terms of offering me a counterbalance or a moment of peace from the turmoil and hubbub of university life.

And that’s both performing music and attending shows as well?

Exactly. So just having that other thing to escape to helped me stay focused on what I needed to do in school.

So is this concert part of a particular tour?

This is a tour stop, yeah. We were in Amherstburg, Ontario just outside of Windsor last night, we’re in Cleveland tomorrow night. then we’re in London Ontario this week, and Indianapolis. We’re really getting into the fall touring season now.

And this is all in service of “Collider,” right?

This is all “Collider” now. We’ve been playing festivals all summer, but the tour, I’d say, starts this week.

So how’s the tour been on the whole? Has it been treating you well?

Yeah, it’s been great. It’s always a daunting prospect when you first put out a record because you’re not really sure how it’s going to react live. Whether you’ll be able to pull it off live at all can be a bit of a question mark. So when it starts to work, and this record in particular, we play almost every song. Not every night, but we play almost every song. There have been records in the past where we just said, “These four songs, let’s just not even touch them live because they’re just not working for us.” But this record seems to really work for us as a band live and for the fans as well. So it’s been good. Ups and downs, always. There has to be that. We have shitty shows too that come in. We just try to make sure they’re as few and far between as possible.

Yeah, “Do the best you can all the time.”

That’s it.

What’s the reaction to the tour been like?

I think the rhythmic nature of this record has really sort of given a new dimension to what we do on stage. All of a sudden we’re able to shift the show in a different direction every night, and that’s really important for a band who’s trying to keep an audience really engaged. If we went back and I think if we made the same record over and over and over again, the show would become so samey from start to finish that it’s hard to create that sense of a journey. Whereas now with “Collider” we can turn on this new sort of perspective and all of a sudden you draw people’s attention in a completely new way. They move differently, they’re engaged with the band differently, so it’s been working really well so far.

It’s kind of like being familiar but keeping on surprising.

Yeah, exactly. I mean you can’t just reiterate the exact same thing. There’s no question that there’s a common thread between all of our records. I mean it comes from the same people. We’re not changing personnel; I’m the same person when I write. When I sit down and write a song, I’m still drawing on the same life experiences. Of course your perspective changes with time and with age, but I still have the same general relationship with the world around me as I did before, and in that sense the music will still follow a certain path. It’s just how you choose to encapsulate it. What pill form do you put it in before you try to feed it to people? That’s the interesting part of making records.

Have you had the same band and been working with the same musicians?

Same guys since high school. So if you extend back another decade before we were even remotely known by the Canadian public, we were still the same guys. Plotting and scheming in basements and garages back home in Montreal trying to figure out how to make it work. Even in our university life when we were at McGill, we were so distracted at times from what we needed to be. I should’ve been reading Wacousta or Huckleberry Finn, but I’m writing songs and scribbling lyrics and drawing guitars. It’s very much that quintessential rock and roll dream. It’s hard to get anything done when you feel that there’s this big part of you that’s unfulfilled.

And you don’t regret it, this whole “rock and roll” lifestyle, do you?

I can’t possibly, I mean it’s just everyday I laugh to myself at how lucky I am that this is what I get to do.

With your friends.

With my friends! My best friends in the world! And we’re here together, and we travel. To think of all the places that we’ve gone to and seen, and the people that we’ve met, the level of appreciation that we’re shown everyday for what we do. It feels scary, sometimes, that we’re given that much of a voice, and that you can have that much of an impact on people’s lives, and still enjoy it. I’m not a politician, my hair isn’t turning grey from what I’m doing. Like you see the president and after two years he’s got grey hair. I’m not sure if it’s a dye job or not.

I think they give you more respect that way.

Yeah… Do presidents dye their hair before so that they seem more youthful to get them elected and then just let it turn grey afterwards? Or is it that being the president actually turns your hair grey?

I don’t know, I don’t know politics. I mean I listen to music and do my studies, I don’t have time to be involved in politics.

This is about hair, it’s not about politics! In a way, politics is a byproduct of hair. I really wonder about that. I want somebody to do some research, because I certainly noticed that George W. had very dark hair, and after a few years of the presidency his hair went grey. So now again, was his hair grey before and he was dying it, or was it so stressful that it turned his hair grey?

I think Bush had a particularly rough eight years.

He had a rough one.

Probably stressful.

So you’re going with stress on that one? Obama’s getting a lot greyer too. I mean he looked like a spring chicken when he was elected and he’s already looking… you know he’s had a rough few years as well. So anyway…

Yeah, running the country has to take its toll, bottom line.

Yeah, it takes its toll on your hair.

Alright, so tell us about the new album, “Collider”?

Well, it was written in a basement. It didn’t have particularly auspicious beginnings, it was just one of those things where winter settled in in Montreal and I went down in the basement and started writing music because our tour had ended and I had all these songs that I’d been bottling up for a long time and I really wanted to flush them out and see what would come. And the first song I wrote was “Streets of Heaven,” which may be the biggest departure from anything we’d done prior to that. It started off with a folk riff that could’ve easily, if I had followed that guitar line in its more natural course, led to a completely different record. But because I added a more sort of groove oriented dance beat to it, it basically set the blueprint for the whole record, in a way.

So you built the entire record around that one song?

That one song, that one idea: that it was all going to be based on rhythm.

So it’s got a really cohesive feel, the entire album, just going from song to song?

Yeah. I don’t like to force songs into a mould, necessarily, if they don’t want to be that. But with rhythm you can do that, in a sense. You can make sure that every song has a very strong rhythmic identity, and that was my plan for the record; if I had one, that was it. They’re still all about different things. Every song is about something different, and there’s different instrumentation than we’d ever used before.

From album to album, is this the same approach you use?

From album to album, I never remember what I’d done for the last one, to be honest. It had been three years since I’d sat down to write “Love at the End of the World.” I was living in a different house at the time. I had no idea what I’d done for “Chemical City” before that. I don’t write every day, so there’s no continuity. I write when I’ve got the urge to write a record, and I sit down and I’ll write. So if there’s cohesiveness to the records, it’s because I write them all in a fairly limited time frame.

Well if I’m honest, I had no idea you put out a new album until I saw the ad in our paper, and my editor says, “Go down and check it out.” But I do love your work.

Well thanks.

I mean I put “Chemical City” in the car on my way down here. “Love at the End of the World,” that was a great album too.

Thank you.

So I’m definitely familiar with your work and it’s good to know that you’re still around because, honestly, I grew up with you, man!

I’m still around, yep! And it’s strange to hear people say now that they’ve grown up with a band because, like I was saying before, coming back here, I’m like, “Holy shit, 10 years had gone by, just about.” It’s been 10 years since we started touring, proper and I don’t feel different. I’m still excited about what I do. I still feel young, and I still feel like I got something to prove.

You haven’t aged a bit, and that enthusiasm has to translate well into your shows and into your work.

I still think the shows are getting better and better, because for some reason we’re getting hungrier and hungrier for something, I don’t even know what it is that we’re going for. It’s not fame and fortune, it’s just something. It’s this thing that you’re chasing. When we were kids growing up, it was, “Yeah, I want to be in a band. I want everybody to know who the hell I am, and that’s what’s important.” And then that didn’t happen for a long time, and then by the time I was in my mid-twenties I was like, “I don’t give a shit if I play for fifty people, I just want to play music. So just give me the chance.” Then it becomes desperate, and it’s just like, “Give me the chance to play, and I’ll show you that I can do something worthwhile.” And then finally we get the opportunity and it’s like, “Okay, well here it is: you got a song on the radio and a tour with the biggest band in Canadian history planned. What are you going to make of this?” And of course we started off here and we’re playing for 22 people or whatever it is, and it’s like, “Okay this is going to be hard.” Just because you’ve got this chance, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. And we spent the last ten years figuring out how to hold on to it, but still thrive, still be creative, still grow as people and as musicians. And yeah, I think it’s for that reason that we’re still so engaged in that process. It’s like, “Alright, what’s next? What’s the next record going to be? How’s the next tour going to be better than the one before?”

How have you been received in America, and internationally, if at all?

Good, yeah. In the States, it’s been the exact opposite of what’s happened in Canada; we’ve never had a song on the radio there. We do now, but it’s been a slow build and it’s been a very live touring oriented build, so we’ve had to be very stubborn and very persistent, going back and playing for twenty people, then it’s be fifty, then it’d be a hundred, etc. Looking for that sort of exponential growth without that big sledgehammer radio hit coming down and opening all the doors for you. We’ve been playing down there for just as long as we’ve been playing up here. It’s just been a completely different path, really. Whereas here it’s like, “Hold on for dear life,” there it’s like you’re building it up brick by brick and slowly getting there.

It kind of reminds me of Sloan too because they’re well known in Canada but they go to the States and no one knows them, which is kind of a shame.

People know them, it’s just not as many. They’re not a household name. Like Sloan here, they were the band that I looked up to probably the most. Them, The Grapes of Wrath, 54-40, those are the bands I really looked up to in the Canadian scene when I was growing up. And they do well in the States. They’ll still go to a club and play for a couple hundred people, which to most bands is a huge success. It’s just they don’t have the same sort of pull.

Back in 2004, when you did the Toronto Islands, was that the first time you met Sloan?

No, we met them prior to that, actually. We played some gigs. Basically our first year on the scene we got to meet everyone. All these people who had just been names and faces on the television and the record that you put on everyday, all of a sudden we got to hang out with them and have a beer with them. It was an amazing year. Those couple of years were just basically everything you always dreamed of and then all of a sudden there it is, it’s happening. And you find out that they’re all just nice, normal people…

They’re Canadians, they have to be!

Yeah! And I learned a lot of lessons about being in a band from those guys, from The Tragically Hip. I’d never met the Hip guys before. We’re playing our first gig with them in Victoria, British Columbia, at the beautiful Royal Theatre. And we’re in the basement, in our little dressing room, and they all came in and said, “Hey.” Just these really nice guys, and we’re nervous as hell, shaking in our boots. What do you say? You want to impress them, you want to say something witty, but it doesn’t matter. You just be who you are, and I think that’s stuck with me forever and has defined how I approach what we do now. Just those guys, and the Sloan guys.

So what can we expect from this afternoon’s concert?

Well some sunshine, some heat. It’s a lovely day, so that’s always a good start. I mean we’re going to go out there and play as hard as we do every night.

So this is mostly “Collider,” but can we expect any classics?

Oh we mix it up, for sure; we always mix it up. It’s never just a one album show.

How long is the set, by the way?

I think we’re on for about an hour and a half today. We’ll see how long we can keep ‘em.

And what does the future hold for Sam Roberts?

That is a good question, I wish I could tell you. And if you have any clues, let me know too.

I have no clues, but I’m just as eager to find out!

Yeah, it’s wide open, my friend! If I’ve learned anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.

So you’re going to keep on touring, keep on working?

Oh yeah! I mean, this is it. There’s no plan B. All of our eggs are in this basket, and I hope that they manage to stay in tact.

I look forward to listening to all your upcoming music as well.

Good, well I’m glad.

Is there anything else you would like to say to us?

No, thanks for chatting. And long live the independent university press! It’s an important voice, keep it alive and well.

We’ll do our best! Thank you so much!

My pleasure.

Sam Roberts Interview

- The track from beginning to 5:22 is “The Pilgrim” by Sam Roberts off of the album, “Love at the End of the World.”
- The interview with Sam Roberts runs from 5:22 to 24:36.
- The track from 24:36 to end is “Streets of Heaven (Promises, Promises)” by Sam Roberts off of the album, “Collider.”

Andrew Walt treats himself to a funnel cake after an interview well done.

On Thursday, a nice young lady from www.notesolution.com, the U of T start up whose note sharing service I wrote about it back  in January, contacted me with the news that their site was about to undergo a fairly substantial overhaul. Assuming they were hoping for a bit of publicity, I agreed to having a sneak peek at the new site, and decided to bang out a quick article about it for the newspaper website, which I’ve copy pasted below.

Normally, I’d direct such a request to the editor-in-chief, but I’ve fallen completely out of contact with her and decided just to take the initiative myself, rather than fire off more emails that will most likely go without a response, if they were even read at all. So between first getting the tip and the article’s posting on the website, barely 24 hours elapsed. I guess I’m pretty efficient when I don’t make futile efforts to follow some sort of imaginary protocol.

Besides, what sort of rebuke will I be likely to get? “Oh web editor, how dare you be productive and update our website which hasn’t seen any developments in nearly a month!” I highly doubt any staffers besides myself will notice, let alone have anything to say about it.

That’s enough sarcastic articulations of my frustrations with the newspaper. Read the article, if you’re so inclined. I’m going to go practice the piano.

Sharing notes with the country

Last September, a little website called Notesolution.com appeared on the radars of U of T students. A free platform created to encourage students to share notes and study better, Notesolution.com offers an online note exchange service where students can share their lecture notes and study guides with each other, and even earn rewards for doing so. Now moving into its second year of operation, Notesolution.com is preparing for quite the overhaul.

“From Facebook to Foursquare, people are looking to their peers for the best source of information,” says Jack Tai, the site’s CEO and co-founder. “Notesolution.com is the next natural progression for this concept of social learning.”

Tai, once a U of T undergraduate himself, developed the idea for the site with colleagues Kevin Wu and Jackey Li after contemplating how the daunting academic challenges of first and second year undergraduates could be lessened through the opportunities a Web 2.0 world creates. A social network of notes seemed to be the answer.

“We believe that experience is the best teacher,” says Kevin Wu, COO and co-founder. “So why not learn from the experiences of fellow students? Notesolution.com is a gateway for students to exchange study materials with each other, connecting and enhancing their university life.”

With over 10,000 users sharing over 12,000 notes after just one year of operation, the Notesolution.com team feels that now is the time for expansion. At the end of August, Notesolution 2.0 will be launching, which not only promises a more easily navigable user interface with a slick new look, style, and feel (think Twitter crossed with Apple), but also takes the service, previously only available to U of T students, Canada wide. The largest selection of university notes in the country is set to be made available to it, with over 20 Canadian universities slated to receive access to the service.

“Our goal is to have Notesolution.com used by all post secondary students nationally in September 2012,” says Tai. “Let’s just say we are aiming to be Zynga for education, but we are taking it step by step.”

Zynga is the undisputed king of social network games, so to be its equivalent in any field is quite the aspiration. But if every Canadian university student knows someone who uses Notesolution.com as every Facebook user knows someone who plays FarmVille, then Tai and his team are well on their way.

With summer winding down and the fall session just two weeks away, check out Notesolution.com for an easy advantage on the upcoming academic year.

Here’s the write up I did for a play I saw on Friday. This is entirely of my own volition, mostly because I have an interest in ancient drama and Old Comedy in particular, and because I’m unlikely ever to see an authentic staging of an Aristophanic comedy. Click on the subhead to be whisked away to the newspaper website where you can pad out our unimpressive traffic figures! There are also links on Facebook and Twitter as well, neither of which I have, so a lot of good that does me, I guess.

All’s fair in love and war… except for sex

Grotesque fat suits, vibrant exaggerated masks, and throbbing cocks flopping about. These are the things that should come to mind when one thinks of an Aristophanic comedy. So named after the only fully extant comic of Classical Athens, Old Comedy reveled in the raunchy and absurd, all the while holding up a mirror to the civic body and harshly critiquing its follies with colour and wit.

Lysistrata, originally produced at Athens in 411BC, is considered to be one of Aristophanes’ peace plays. A popular theme for the poet, Athens had been embroiled in the historic Peloponnesian War against Sparta for quite some time and at great expense. In Lysistrata, the eponymous character rallies together the women from all regions and allegiances of Greece and begins a sex strike until peace between the two cities is attained. Only then will the men of Greece finally be able to ease their egregious erections in the equally as eager embraces of their women.

Although the play is time-locked with heavy political and wartime undertones specific to the Classical Greek world, Lysistrata nevertheless manages to maintain an element of timelessness, perhaps even above Aristophanes’ other plays. The reason for this is that, while Athens has long since fallen from grace, sex and war are still around and don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. And as befits a proper Old Comedy, especially one about a sex strike, virtually every line is laced with sexual innuendo and raunchy humour. Some of it perhaps a bit arcane (how many people are likely to know about Helen saving her skin by exposing it to Menelaus?), most of it pretty overt, what with the aforementioned floppy cocks.

However the truth of the matter is that Old Comedy was a competitive affair, and success for the poet was equally as dependent on laugh-out-loud silliness as it was on intrinsically linking it to the immediate context and community. As such these comic scripts are littered with barbs against prominent Athenian politicians and lampoons of traditional mythology. Common knowledge to your average late fifth century Athenian citizen, but far from intelligible to anyone except the diehard classicists of today.

Thankfully for the everyman, this production of Lysistrata actually goes to considerable lengths to ease this disconnect. There are no Old Comedy staples of fat suits and masks – those would probably be too alarming and elicit questions, not necessarily laughs. The central competing choruses of old men and women are also reduced and written into supporting characters, presumably since the lovely outdoor theatre space seems to be too small for the full effect. Even the grand closing set piece of the original text – a stunningly beautiful nude woman whom the Spartan and Athenian delegates ogle while analogizing her lovely bits to Greek geography – is nixed for reasons obvious, but no less unfortunate. But I suppose that’s enough about what Lysistrata gets wrong.

So what’s right with the production? Despite all the necessary divergences from the original drama and the addition of a ragtag bathhouse cleaning crew of ladies, the core story is essentially identical and more or less faithfully recreates the best sequences of the original. The contest between the women and the local magistrate with his four Scythian archers is featured, as are the foiled escape attempts of a trio of women from their stronghold for a quickie. Most fortunate of all, the playful teasing of Cinesias and the withholding of sex by his wife Myrrhine is faithfully recreated in what’s surely the highlight of the show. The cast also performed exceptionally well and with appreciable vigour, certainly rising to the peculiar challenges of staging an Aristophanic comedy.

Unfortunately, these positives just mean that Lysistrata is a good play, not necessarily a good Old Comedy production. The biggest flaw for me is that it just felt too tame and reserved. Sure, all the female characters are keen to grope their breasts and shout “Women for Peace!” at the slightest provocation in the first half, and all the male characters strut around with enviable endowment under their robes in the second. But it all felt somewhat halfhearted and not nearly as provocative as it should’ve been. It’s just not bawdy, raunchy, and uproarious enough. And while it’s certainly an admirable effort, there’s a distinctive lack of Old Comedy spirit.

It’s not that Aristophanes is anachronistic all of a sudden. After all, sex and war never lose topicality. I’m more inclined to believe that Lysistrata just didn’t do enough to make itself distinct. It hovers indecisively between faithful recreation and tasteful adaptation, coming alive in places but never really coming together as a whole.

Still, Old Comedy is a supremely difficult thing to stage, and I certainly admire the effort. Technically competent, but lacking the Aristophanic essence, it succeeds as a performance but stumbles as a production. Just like the women featured, there’s a whole lot of teasing with no real payoff. And just like the men, parts of the audience are piqued, but they’re likely to leave wanting more.

Lysistrata is presented by Hart House Theatre and staged by the Canopy Theatre Company. Performances happen at 8PM from today until Saturday August 6. For more information, visit www.canopytheatre.ca.