Overview
- The Bad Hersfelder Festspiele premiered Amanda Lasker-Berlin's 'Lysistrata oder Die Fantasie von Frieden' on Friday, July 3, directed by Marlene Anna Schäfer and starring Gioia Osthoff and Gesine Cukrowski.
- A festival poster campaign reading 'No Peace – No Sex' went up before the premiere and features festival staff and local officials to frame the play as a public provocation.
- Lead actor Gioia Osthoff said she will try to 'seduce' the audience into supporting the onstage sex strike and has linked the tactic to modern causes such as pay equality.
- Critics and early audiences praised the production's large-scale, mixed-media staging—pink torches, real flames, rock and Greek music, flamboyant costumes—and noted active audience participation and strong applause at the premiere.
- As the festival's final in-house production the play will continue at the Stiftsruine through July and August, with its site-specific scale shaping the text and design and likely extending discussion about protest, peace and gender roles.