In The Gardens. Or: Lysistrata Part 2

In today’s politically correct, vegan, gender-neutral atmosphere, the clash of the sexes seems to have ended. The times when men explained the world to women and women had to suffer through bad sex are over. Women have been in leadership positions for years and no longer require men to reproduce. But what is to be the fate of the former lords of creation worn down through endless competition who one day went on strike, using sexual abstinence to fight against feelings of inferiority? The audience meanders, like visitors to a natural history museum, though gardens of the past that never resembled a paradise. On display are the various milestones of human romantic relationships, from the moment a young couple meets to their founding of a new family. For proponents of patriarchal systems, older gender roles were coherent and made life simpler. But they didn’t really make anyone happy. Everyone is still faced with a basic question: How can the relationship between the sexes be fundamentally altered?

Sibylle Berg subversively recalibrates Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata, not only for our modern era but extends its reach into a future in which people have been replaced on Earth by machines. Is this humans liberating themselves – from themselves?