How to go
What: “The Revolutionists”
Where: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mt. Adams Circle, Cincinnati
When: Feb. 11-March 6; show times are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
Cost: $30-$65
More info: 800-582-3208 or www.cincyplay.com
“I did not say that bit about the cake,” says Queen Marie Antoinette in Lauren Gunderson’s new play, “The Revolutionists,” which opens Thursday, Feb. 11, at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
Critically acclaimed and one of the most produced playwrights in the United States, Gunderson is often drawn to historical pieces because women and minorities are typically absent from the record. So it’s hardly surprising she’d be drawn to the French Revolution, which, as history is usually taught, features only one well-known female, and that only because of a (likely) malicious misquote.
“Everyone thinks they know who she is,” Gunderson said. “In some ways, she is ridiculous and extravagant, but she’s also a great listener and a great friend, with a knack for saying the right thing at the right time.”
“The Revolutionists” follows the intrigues of three women in addition to Antoinette. Olympe de Gouges was a playwright and feminist who initially applauded the Revolution and its alleged values (liberty, equality, fraternity), but became disillusioned when those values were jettisoned in favor of fanatical bloodshed. Charlotte Corday was a poor, minor aristocrat who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist who abetted the subsequent Reign of Terror, which ultimately left over 40,000 people dead. The final protagonist, and the only fictional one, is Marianne Angelle, the wife of a free man of color from the Caribbean island Hispaniola, a slave-owning French colony at the time (since split into the Dominican Republic and Haiti).
Gunderson said her decision to create Marianne came after a fruitless search for a historical free woman of color whose story she could tell.
“There are a lot of beautiful pictures (of women),” said Gunderson somewhat wryly. “Traditionally, women were captured visually but not intellectually. But there would’ve been women involved in the independence movement. (Marianne) is an ode to their hearts and uncaptured work. She’s a revolutionary who becomes Olympe’s friend.”
Although there’s no evidence (or likelihood) that the three historical women crossed paths in reality, there’s no ironclad evidence that they didn’t either, which gives Gunderson ample license to tinker.
“Marie and Olympe were likely in the same room,” she said. “Olympe was often at court, and Marie liked the theater. But they probably didn’t have too many sophisticated tete-a-tetes.”
Ultimately, the play is about friendship and legacy, as all four women hurtle toward their grim fates.
“They make each other laugh and cringe, become better versions of who they would’ve been on their own,” Gunderson said. “I’ve always been fascinated by (the French Revolution), with its pure values and how it went so wrong so fast. It’s a hard lesson to remember. Remembering the level of vitriol, we’re not far from it today.”
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