eTwinning project “SAVE THE EARTH WITH ARISTOPHANES”

THE FROGS

ARISTOPHANES

But…Who’s Aristophanes? Many people don’t know this writer of the past. Aristophanes was the most important comedy writer of the Ancient Greece.

We don’t know much about his life, he was born between 444 and 441 b.C.  We know a lot of dates about his artistic career, in fact he won many prizes thanks to his comedies.

He was tried by the democratic Cleone because of the outrage of the city of Athens towards strangers during the Dionisie, while the comedy “Babilonesi” was playing.

This fact shows us how much non-conformist he was

Now we must ask, “what’s a comedy”?

A comedy is a drama and the term ancient comedy refers specifically to a political comedy, because in it we can find the real history of the city of Athens at the time of Aristophanes. His comedies are a particular and privileged point of view on politic facts, social problems, and cultural debates of that historical moment.

In his comedies he made fun of people that he considered to be responsible for corruption and the political decay of his Athens.

Aristophanes is a comedy writer without comparison in the present: the comedy was full of comic invention and without inhibitions.  It had a strong scenic rhythm and was also dizzying without concern for the plot, with many linguistic registers to arouse an “intelligent laugh”.

We’re going to talk about a comedy called “The Frogs”, presented by Philonides, winner of the “Lenee” of 405 B.C.

We apologize to Aristophanes, but we took the liberty of changing the political theme, that our author loved so much, with an environmental theme.

The authors of this “adulteration” are my students of a first grade class of the Volturino Primary School (Foggia – Italy). I obviously, as their teacher, included them in this adventure.

Let’s dance! 

THE FROGS

A group of primary school students decides to take a trip back to the past, to Ancient Greece, where a comedy writer called ARISTOPHANES lived. Why him? Because he would re-write the comedy of the frogs to find some solutions for a problem of the future: THE POLLUTION.

MARIA LAURA- Hey guys, we have to make a trip back in time, we have to go to Ancient Greece…

ELISA- But why to Ancient Greece? Here in Volturino things are perfect, healthy food, good air and delicious wine…

MARIAPIA- No, we have to go because we have a serious problem. MARIALAURA- We must meet the famous ARISTOPHANES..

ELISA- Ari…what?

MARIALAURA- ARISTOPHANEEEES… He will help us find some solutions to the problems that plague our lovely Earth, like pollution.

GIUSY- Look over there! This is a time machine that will bring us to Athenes. Come on, let’s go!

On the notes of the soundtrack of “Back To The Future”, the students of the 1st D board and begin their journey.

They arrive in Athens, a marvelous place, with many monuments, like the Parthenon…Wow!…They can see valleys full of trees. The famous Aristophanes comes on stage.

ARISTOPHANES- Hi! My name is Aristophanes, I’m the biggest comedy writer of Greece! Humbly…

Some students of a primary school asked me to rewrite the comedy “The Frogs”, with a theme that is new to me. It’s a problem that plagues you, people of the future.

Let the comedy begin …

The comedy takes place in Hades; Dionysus, because of the longing for Euripides, goes to Hades to bring him back up on Earth.

Euripides and Aeschylus are going; they’re the most important tragedy writers of the past. They hate each other and are both so vain.

We can hear the shouts of those who are to contending the throne of “tragic poet” in the Hades.

Euripides- My name is Euripides, I am the most important tragedy writer in Greece.

Aeschylus – What? What are you saying?! Me, only me. I am the most important tragedy writer in Greece.

Aeschylus – I believe it! Your tragedies are awful!

EURIPIDES- What are you saying? Your verses make us vomit!

Aeschylus – Mine? …You have no idea who are you talking to!

EURIPIDES- AH AH AH AH…yes, I do. In fact I am talking with the joker of Athenians…

Aeschylus, very angry, keeps shouting wildly at Euripides.

Now a child from the future arrives: he is wearing ripped jeans, sunglasses, has a fashionable haircut and he comes to the men on his scooter.

CHILD- But, you are fighting for trivial things. We, the people of the future, have very serious problems.

ESCHILO- And…who are you?

ANDREA- My name is Andrea, I’m a child of the future.

EURIPIDES- So…where are you from?

ANDREA- I’m from Volturino, a village near the city of Foggia, in Italy.

Aeschylus – And so tell me, what kind of problems are you talking about?

ANDREA- Well… if you only knew… We have some problems with pollution of the air, of the soil and of the water. Our seas, in fact, are polluted by oil from platforms and oil tankers. We have also thrown away so much plastic that we have created real environmental disasters. Many fish die because they eat plastic. Our cities are full of rubbish. In fact not everyone recycles. Factories pollute the air that we all breathe and they have made a hole in our atmosphere, called “the whole in the ozone”.

We, the people of the future, have also built a lot of houses and there aren’t green lawns and natural landscapes like in the past.

Now there’s only cement, cement and tar.

Now the chorus of the frogs arrives and sings a song by Adriano Celentano “Il ragazzo della via Gluk”. Listen…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sYDfESbJAY

The great Dionysus comes.

DIONYSUS- My name is DIONIYSUS, I am the god of natural life.

BREAK TIME…He talks to the child and says:

DIONYSUS- You, people from the future, have got very serious problems! Euripides and Aeschylus, you have to find a solution to their problems.

Aeschylus -mmmmmm…I have an idea! We can ask the garbage collectors to increase the refuse lorries!

EURIPIDES- What are you saying? I have found a solution. We can create a giant vacuum cleaner that can suck up all the rubbish from the entire Planet. What about this? Does it not seem a good solution?

Aeschylus – Oh Euripides, what are you telling us? I have the solution. We can ask all the inhabitants of the planet to blow together and blow all the rubbish into the trash bins. I am a genius!

EURIPIDES- Your solutions are simply unheard of. I have found a good solution. We can destroy all the houses and build a very tall building, so everyone could live there and we’ll have many green lawns and natural landscapes. What about this guys?

DIONYSUS – Stop! You’re confusing me. Euripides, as you know I  respect you very much, but you have some strange ideas! Now you have to put your heads together to fins a good solution

Aeschylus – This seems reasonable: we can create an airplane that will collect and incinerate all the rubbish.

EURIPIDES- Instead, I think we should place a lot of wind turbines and solar panels on the houses.

DIONYSUS- Euripides! In this way we risk collapsing the rooves!! You are putting me in a tough situation, I don’t know which of your solutions I should choose. Do you know what I think? Here is a scale, where we are going to weigh both the solutions, so we can find the winner.

DIONYSUS- Teacher, you need to find a bigger scale…

(In fact I can only find a little scale)…sorry.

Dionysus weighs the solutions and announces the winner.

Look, The solution of my dear Euripides wins!

(Our winner is Euripides so nice to Dionisio.)

CHILD OF THE FUTURE – A special thanks to Aristophanes, who found in this comedy some solutions to the problems of our era.

MARIALAURA- We all hope that every inhabitant of the Earth learns to respect the environment, Nature and our Mother Earth.

Yes, the Earth itself, that is the Earth itself, is the most precious asset we have and we mustn’t destroy it.

And now the chorus of the Frogs prays you to listen to the song that points out the importance of the cycle of nature, from the seed to the flower, to the tree, to the mountain and the Earth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHxNzHv84u4

CLASS 1^D

Antonio Pio

Michele

Giusy

Mariapia

Angelica

Pasquale

Andrea

Costanzo

Maria

Elisa

Marialaura

Thank you so much the parents and my colleague.

Thanks Barbara Ferrari and Amy Peabody..