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I accidentally chose the wrong four plays on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, as I read Four COMEDIES of Aristophanes, not Four Plays. But two of those comedies were Lysistrata and The Frogs so I'll go with it anyway. These plays are full of ribaldry and off color jokes, not really Safe For Work. As with most plays they really need to be seen performed instead of read, as there is much physical comedy involved. Also would help to be an Athenian from 5th century B.C. Greece, as these were written during the Peloponnesian War and contain many topical references to local places, persons, and events. Also there are many jokes and especially puns which do not translate at all well from the Ancient Greek. The plays I read were all anti-war pieces, all contained much sexual reference, and all contained blatant insult to Euripides, who apparently had an ongoing feud with Aristophanes.

The translators do their best with varied success. All are rendered into American English with the jokes altered to make them more understandable. As these plays were written for Athenians all the foreigners represented speak with noticeable accents, usually uneducated or effeminate, and the Spartans, Athens main enemy, is treated particularly harshly.

Lysistrata
The women of Athens go on strike to end the war. They withhold sex from their men until they declare peace, also occupying the treasury so the soldiers cannot be paid. Much wordplay and physical representations of phalluses and female genitalia as the men of Athens and Sparta are forced to end the war as they cannot continue fighting due to their engorged phalluses. The women are not spared, as Lysistrata has trouble keeping her women in line because they too are extremely horny. The Spartans in this piece are portrayed as country bumpkins and speak like Brer Rabbit from Uncle Remus.

The Frogs
Dionysus goes to Hades to collect the best playwright to bring back to Athens because all the good speakers are dead. Dionysus convinces Pluto to let him judge a competition between the best two available, Euripides (recently deceased) and Aeschylus. They start a kind of rap battle, where Aeschylus is accused of being wordy and pedantic, with all his works being about Heroes and Gods and ungrounded ideals, while Euripides is accused of being bucolic and base, his plays dealing with more mortal problems. Dionysus picks a winner to go home and increase the morale of the Athenians during a period where they are being hard pressed by the Spartans.

The Congresswomen
The women of Athens disguise themselves as men and go to the Assembly and vote themselves into power to end war. They set up a Utopian communist rule with free housing, free food, and free love. The problems that result are played out as some men are against sharing their goods, and mostly by a group of hideous hags who accost a handsome young man demanding their share of free love. Some discussion of economic theory and a lot of sex jokes.

The Acharnians
An old farmer conscripted to sentry duty on the walls of Athens decides he wants to go home. He returns to his farm and declares it a neutral territory with a free market open to all except politicians. The police come to collect him and he goes to see his buddy Euripides to borrow some props and lift some parts from his plays to confound the police. Euripides is again treated badly, shown as a lazy hoarder who is ill tempered and can't be bothered to get up off his couch. People from other nations come to the new market and the farmer becomes rich collecting more food than he can eat and a bag full of underaged girls. While he spends his time surrounded by food, fortune, and dancing girls the soldiers are shown to be going off to the frozen frontier to sleep on the ground and eat hard tack.