Next Act’s ‘revolutionists’ a witty twist on french history
Next Act’s “The Revolutionists” tells the stories of four female figure during the French Revolution: Marie-Antoinette (Bree Beelow, from left), Charlotte Corday (Eva Nimmer), Marianne Angelle (Leah Dutchin) and Olympe de Gouges (Cassandra Bissell).
By MARILYN JOZWIK
Published Sept. 30, 2019
Lauren Gunderson’s plays have become a staple of “Next Act” productions (the local company having mounted four of her shows in the last few years), just as they are at theater companies across the nation.
That’s because she’s good. And funny. And smart. And … you get the idea.
In Next Act’s latest production, “The Revolutionists,” Gunderson tells the stories of four women who played roles in the French Revolution. But rather than a stodgy, historical play, Gunderson keeps the historical context, but updates all the characters with witty, fast-paced repartee that sounds more like an SNL comedy sketch than 18th century speakers. Plus, this is no boys club as the all-female cast, director (Laura Gordon) and the playwright attests. As the play progresses, we hear the kind of passionate voices of women who fought for their own rights and those of others, right up to the hashtag movements of today.
Charlotte Corday (Eva Nimmer) prepares for the guillotine, saying her killing of radical revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat saved thousands of lives while her friends Marianne Angelle (Leah Dutchin, left) and Olympe de Gouges (Cassandra Bissell) come to support her.
Set in 1793, the show opens with Olympe de Gouges (Cassandra Bissell), a well-known writer and political activist of the time, on a rant. Bissell charges out of the gate, establishing Olympe as the consummate writer, spilling out her ideas in rambling, slapdash fashion, flitting about her office for inspiration.
Olympe wears the long, hooped dress of the play’s period, but she speaks like a sharp-tongued modern pundit. Bissell’s Olympe is smart, driven, funny. You can’t wait to hear what comes out of her mouth next.
Olympe is interrupted by a friend, Marianne Angelle (Leah Dutchin), a fictional character – a slave who came from Haiti, a French province. Marianne is seeking her freedom from oppression and wants Olympe to write a pamphlet to disseminate to the people to help her cause. Dutchin’s Marianne is calm and focused, a nice contrast to Bissell’s manic Olympe.
Olympe de Gouges (Cassandra Bissell) clings to pages of her play that is critical of France’s radical revolutionaries, not sure if she should destroy them and not risk repercussions.
Next bursting in on Olympe is Charlotte Corday (a wide-eyed, crazed Eva Nimmer), who plots to kill Jean-Paul Marat, a French political activist and journalist. Marat advanced the ideas of the radical Jacobin faction that led to the bloody Reign of Terror, which was responsible for the execution of King Louis XVI – and many others -- by guillotine in 1793. She believes Marat’s death will save thousands more from dying.
There is so much to chew on here, bite-sized chunks that come in fast and furious dialog that is poignant and funny, delivered with impeccable comic timing by this well-tuned ensemble. When Marianne chides Olympe for her inability to articulate their causes, Olympe flippantly replies: “I’m not blocked; just mentally hibernating.” Meanwhile, Marianne exhorts her “to find the heart, not the art.”
There is considerable discussion about the importance of writers with Olympe defending her craft repeatedly, saying, “Theater is democracy,” and “The story is the heartbeat of humanity.”
But just when you think this party couldn’t get any more interesting, in walks Marie-Antoinette (Bree Beelow), fresh from the guillotine execution of her husband, Louis XVI, a fate which will also befall her. Marie has been stripped of her royalty, but not her royal habits. Beelow carries the former-queen’s signature, piled-high golden locks like a tiara and lounges around Olympe’s office like a ditzy blond at a Hollywood cocktail party. It is an absolutely hilarious portrayal that also infuses the deposed queen with moments of humanness and caring as the women express their solidarity.
Olympe de Gouges (Cassandra Bissell, left) and Marianne Angelle (Leah Dutchin) assess Charlottee Corday (Eva Nimmer), who wants to kill a radical revolutionary, part of The Reign of Terror.
In Act II, Marianne becomes impatient with Olympe’s not doing enough, but hiding behind her quill pen: “If you don’t do this, who will?” Olympe, heeding the notion of “égalité” (equality), part of the nation’s motto of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” has become disillusioned since her public Declaration of Women has been dismissed. And when she wants to destroy the play she’s been working on that condemns the radical revolutionists, in order to save herself, Marianne rebukes her, saying that if she does so “our lives will be blank.”
Bissell’s Olympe is always on the edge of urgency, her mind racing in ways to use the power of her pen for the greater good. At one point she muses that “Revolutions don’t have to be bloody” that they can be “creative.”
The decisions of these women cost them dearly as we learn how cruelly dissenters were done away with, even as Olympe declares, “You can’t kill the writers; that’s Democracy 101!
And for anyone who thinks history is boring, think again. “The Revolutionists” will change that.
If you go:
Who: Next Act Theatre
What: “The Revolutionists”
When: Through Oct. 20
Where: 255 S. Water St., Milwaukee
Tickets/Info: nextact.org