THE FROGS – REVIEW OF 2025 PRODUCTION AT SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE, LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

When was the last time you saw a comedy by Aristophanes? He is universally accepted as the great writer of comedy in Ancient Greece but there are few productions of his plays outside of Greece. His comedies are rooted in ancient Athens with references to events current in the fifth century BCE. Understanding them requires references to footnotes and the plays are almost invariably produced in a “version” that can be made comprehensible to a modern audience. 

The version of The Frogs, which is staged at the Southwark Playhouse in London has a long history and a sterling pedigree. It was adapted and staged by Burt Shevelove in 1974 in the swimming pool of Yale University with Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Durang. They were all students at Yale at the time.

Since then, it has received numerous changes including music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and was adapted “even more freely” by Nathan Lane. It has received numerous productions around the U.S., England, Canada and Australia most of them with short runs. It even made it to Lincoln Center where it ran for 90 performances.

Georgie Rankcom has staged a full-throated production in the tiny Southwark Playhouse in the Borough of Southwark. The skeleton of Aristophanes’ play remains but almost everything has changed from the “freely adapted” by Shevelove to the “even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane” and the songs by Sondheim have been changed as well. It’s done in the service of making the classic play funny and understandable to people who are not intimately aware of what was happening in Athens in 405 BCE, that is all of us.

Things are not going well in old Athens and Dionysus, the demigod of the theatre decides to go to Hades, the underworld, and bring a great playwright to fix things. This version is set in old Athens, but it takes place today and Dionysus has Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw as good candidates to revive the great city.

The cast of The Frogs. Photo: Pamela Raith

It sounds boring already, but it is not. Dan Buckley as Dionysus and Kevin McHale as his slave Xanthias are superb comic actors and have some very funny lines. Xanthis prefers to be considered an apprentice rather than a slave. His parents were poor and had to sell him into slavery. He recalls them bargaining with the purchaser and trying to get a better price by offering a mule to go with him. Dionysus wants to go to the underworld as a macho man, like Herakles and he goes to his half-brother Herakles (Jaquin Pedro Valdes) to get an outfit to pass as him. Fact: their daddy Zeus did their mothers and hence the relationship.

There is tomfoolery and modern references that are funny. On seeing Herakles’ beautiful house Xanthis mistakes it for Shaw’s and comments that My Fair Lady must have really paid off.

We meet the frogs and the lazy, good-for-nothing citizens of Athens who want everything to stay as it is. How about a dance routine by frogs? We get a Chorus, and they treat us to Sondheim’s songs which will keep us company throughout.

The travelers need to cross the river Styx with a hilarious Charon (Carl Patrick), the boatman. The Frogs appear and do their number, and we meet Ariadne (Alison Driver), Dionysus’ former wife. All along we are treated to energetic acting, dancing and singing.

In order to decide what poet will return to earth, they propose a contest between Shaw (Martha Pothen) and Shakespeare (Bart Lambert). In the end Shaw reads some lines from Saint Joan and Shakespeare recites lines from Cymbeline. They do not work very well because they are not in keeping with the spirit of the play. The second half fizzes out a bit and a line like “I will throw Ibsen in” when trying to convince Dionysus to take Shaw over Shakespeare is the best we get.

Director Georgie Rankcom creates energy and humour with a talented cast and a play version that we are grateful for.
_____________________
The Frogs by Aristophanes et. al. played until June 28, 2025, at the Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD. http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press