Liberté. Égalité. Sororité?

The Revolutionists – Strawdog Theatre

The Revolutionists is a fictionalized account of four women from the French Revolution: Olympe de Gouges, a real playwright, Charlotte Corday, the woman famous for assassinating Jean-Paul Marat, Marianne Angelle, a fictional amalgamation of the women who fought for freedom in Haiti against the hypocrisy of the French Revolution (which claimed freedom for all men… except the ones who maintained the lucrative sugar plantations) and, of course, Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated former Queen of France. The play imagines de Gouges facing a wicked case of writer’s block as the other three come to her for help with their stories. Madame de Gouges wants the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen to include women. Corday wants to stop the bloody pen of Marat and is looking for the final words she will speak as she faces the guillotine for her forthcoming crime. Angelle wants help spreading the story of the injustice crushing her people in Haiti. Marie Antoinette just wants to be the center of attention for as long as possible. The four women’s stories intersect and overlap as they all attempt to survive the revolution while pushing it where they want it to go.

The play spends its time asking a lot of questions about the course of revolutions and movements for freedom that ignore the needs of people not lucky enough to be white men in those movements. It explores the compromises people, particularly women, make to survive and/or improve terrible systems. I think most of the show is most focused on asking what the role of art is in a revolution. Is the playwright watching and writing from a distance betraying the braver people at the front lines, or filling a vital role when you understand that the way things are remembered is just as important as the way things actually were. The play also takes a light but confident hand in exploring the overlapping ways people process their place in a terrible social order. The characters constantly challenge each other, and they and the show are better as a result.

The cast is phenomenal. Both individually and as a cohesive ensemble, they are one of the strongest casts I’ve seen this year. Sarah Goeden as Marie Antoinette steals every scene she’s in, which is no small accomplishment against her very talented cast mates. I find the stereotype of Marie Antoinette as ‘airhead oligarch’ to be a little cliché, and the real story more interesting anyway, but in the hands of Goeden, I found myself enjoying the portrayal in spite of myself. Her comic timing is superb and every word and expression lands with surgical precision. Kat McDonnell as de Gouges has to anchor the story as the woman the others approach for help. She is more than equal to the task. I really can’t say enough nice things about these four actors. All of them crackle with energy and humor that carry their characters through some very dense material.

The only real critique I will lay at the show’s feet is that the ending gets a little heavy-handed. I am fine with a play about people making a play discussing what a play is for. That’s fine. But a few choices they make in how to convey that point got to be a little…much…for my tastes. I don’t mind a show getting meta about itself, but at one point it was almost cringeworthy. Aside from that one misstep though, I enjoyed myself immensely. I walked in expecting a show more about the French Revolution per se, and the show I got was more about theater and the role of art in times of chaos, using the backdrop and elements of the French Revolution to propel its message. I love theater, obviously, and by and large the points it make about art and the continuum between both being a part of history and documenting it are interesting and well explored. In the balance, on the strength of a truly amazing cast alone, the show is worth your time. I’m giving this a ‘highly recommended’ with one caveat: this is not the show for the friend whose arm you have to twist to get them to go to live theater. This is not, for lack of a better term, an entry-level show for people who don’t already know and enjoy theater. That said, if you like theater, then you will like this.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented November 15-December 29 by Strawdog Theatre at 1802 W. Berenice, Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 773-644-1380 or by visiting http://www.strawdog.org/.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.

*I have a tiny nit to pick, and no one probably cares, but it’s my review, so there…There are a couple of throwaway jokes about inadvertently producing Les Mis.  /sigh/ If one wants to be accurate, Les Mis takes place in the June Rebellion of 1832, forty years after the French Revolution, and was a separate revolt against an entirely different set of monarchs. In fairness, the French have had a lot of revolutions so it’s easy to get confused, but it’s like making jokes about the War of 1812 in a show about 1776. That is all.