HEADS. WILL. ROLL.
The Revolutionists is feminist history laced with an argument for the value of art in revolution. Playwright Lauren Gunderson (The Book of Will, Silent Sky, Exit, Pursued by a Bear) describes it as a “comedic quartet about four women at the height of the Reign of Terror. Liberté, égalité… sororité.” In Lamplighters Community Theatre’s new production, a quartet of badass women, three real and one fictional, team up to fight for the rights of women, art and freedom during the French Revolution. Playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle find friendship, plot murder, fight for their rights, and lose their heads in The Reign of Terror. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, feminism and terrorism, art, and how we actually go about changing the world.
Katrina Peterson directs this two-hour production. The dialogue, full of anachronisms and more than a few contemporary references, is funny and, ultimately, moving. It’s Paris in 1793 and playwright Olympe de Gouges (Kat McDonnell) is trying to write a new play. Marianne Angelle, a fictional Caribbean freedom fighter, (Nicki Barnes) appears to discuss the revolution; she demands that Olympe write about France’s treatment of its slave colonies in the Caribbean, the source of its sugar, coffee and indigo. Marianne is from Haiti and she and her husband are in France to fight for their freedom.
Charlotte Corday (Jenna Renee Pekny), a beautiful and determined activist, also has a cause. She’s going to murder the reviled radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat in his bath. She seeks out Olympe because she needs a writer to help her with her lines. What does she say as she stabs Marat? What are her last words when she goes to the guillotine, as she knows she will? But, “One man every once in a while really needs to die.” The fourth member of the quartet is a sparkly, nervous Marie Antoinette (Gaby Jentzsch), who is angry because she’s no longer a queen. She wants Olympe to salvage her reputation in the new play about the revolution. She tries to explain away some of the historical canards about her reputation.
The Revolutionists
Lamplighters Community Theatre, 5915 Severin Drive
produced by Pamela Stompoly
Fri and Sat at 8; Sun at 2; Sat at 2 (Aug. 31)
ends on September 15, 2024
for tickets ($22-$27), call 619.303.5092’‹ or visit Lamplighters