November 14, 1992 - December 19, 1992
| The Sydney Theatre Company
Directed by: Geoffrey Rush
| Written by: Geoffrey Rush, John Clarke
| Literature: Aristophanes
| Costume Design: Colin Mitchell
| Production Design: Brian Thomson
| Music: Deborah Conway
Aristophanes' Frogs was produced in 405 BC, shortly after the deaths of the two great veteran Athenian tragic dramatists Euripides and Sophocles; it was restaged a year later, a few weeks before a starving Athens at last accepted defeat in the long Peloponnesian War. Dionysus, the god of drama, wine and joyful celebration, goes down to the underworld to bring his favourite poet, Euripides, back from the dead, and surprises both himself and the audience by bringing back instead Aeschylus, who had died fifty years before, with the mission of saving both Athens and Tragedy from ruin. The contest for the throne of tragedy between Euripides and Aeschylus is the earliest sustained piece of literary criticism in the Western tradition.
Cast: Trevor Stuart (Dionysus, god of wine and drama), Paul Blackwell (Xanthias, his slave / Pluto, god of the underworld), Russel Garbutt (a donkey / a corpse), Toni Collette (a donkey / Maid to Persephone), William Zappa (Herakles, a warrior / Aeacus, janitor of Hades / Euripides, the dramatist), Robin Nevin (Charon, ferryman of the dead / Hostess), Robbie Avenaim, Paul Capsis, Deborah Conway, Wayne Ferrer, Catherine Lynch, Katrina Sedgwick (chorus)
