Ancient Gods and the Battle of the Sexes

When the Acropolis was an architectural innovation; when Cupid was learning archery – and wasn’t sure if he would go down in history as a hit or a myth . . . at that time the ancient Gods were cheerfully waging a war which has survived as the Athenian amphitheatres crumble: the time-honoured Battle of the Sexes.

Last night two of them, in the guise of mere mortals, took time off from Eternity to give a down-to-earth and very amusing demonstration of how to provoke the Opposite Sex into Armed Combat – the only sort the Gods could master, in Rushden Amateur Dramatic Society’s “The Rape of the Belt”.

Seems a pity to disillusion you, dear readers, but Heracles and Theseus were guilty of some ungentlemanly, not to mention un-godly behaviour in their humorous attempts to get that bejewelled belt.

MATRIARCHY

Of course, those wily Amazon Goddesses – Antiope and Hyppolyte – Minister of Home Affairs and Minister of Defence, irrespectively, of the Thermiscyran Matriarchy were mainly to blame.

Using their extremely disarming charms, they persuaded the two Male Adventurers that it simply was not heroic to use Arms (weapons for the wielding of) to conquer a poor, defenceless Nation of Women, rather than Arms (Goddesses for the holding of).

And it was not very long before Heracles and Theseus, despite the knowledge that their bellicose countrymen would openly ridicule them if it was discovered they had submitted to the Dreaded Enemy – women – without even drawing swords were completely ensnared.

SOPHISTICATED

Heather Munns and Patricia Smith, as the Goddesses, both managed sophisticated portrayals, getting across admirably that delicate, almost ethereal quality of innocence intermingled with subtle forcefulness to get the men into The Tap.

Narrators Hera (Lily Hawes) and Zeus (John Booth) did a grand continuity job – though not seriously, for they put the accent on raising laughs with verbal exchanges between Man and Wife, who obviously knew they could not trust each other further than Mercury could fly without his special winged boots.

INNOCUOUS

Rene Welsford, as Hippobomene, played the innocuous blacksmith with the iron-would-not-melt-in-my-brazier look, and ably supported the rest of the cast. Other parts were taken by Phyllis Clarke, the bustling Minister of Maternity: Judith Childs and Barbara Harrison as servants.

“The Rape of the Belt.” Which continues tonight and tomorrow at Rushden Secondary School for Boys, was produced by David Edwards, with Brian D. Betterton as stage manager. Virginia Sackett designed the set.

The end of the play must, of course, remain undisclosed. Sufficient to say the Battle of the Sexes is finally won and the future of the Goddesses is in the laps of the Gods literally.