Feature: THE REVOLUTIONISTS Will Not Be Televised, so Don't Miss It at Main Street
By: Katricia Lang Sep. 30, 2016
"Who runs the world," asks Beyoncé and, more importantly, BroadwayWorld's Brett Cullum in his review of THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Both agree. Girls wrote, acted, and designed for the woman-centric, woman-power comedy. The critically acclaimed production of THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater closes this weekend. See photos from the production and hear from the playwright, Lauren Gunderson, below!
THE REVOLUTIONISTS is a based-on-a-true-story play. By this, I mean that award-winning American playwright Lauren Gunderson mixes true historical figures like playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette; fictional historical figures like Haitian freedom-fighter Marianne Angelle; and real imagined facts, i.e. dialogue, events, nay-meetings that could have happened, might have happened, but probably didn't happen. They didn't happen. Marianne Angelle isn't on the books. But who cares? She's a known unknown that's starting a war worth fighting for. "We know that women were there. They're always there. They're always helping in myriad ways," says Gunderson, who gave Marianne all the strength, creativity, power and agency of all the women whose contributions she feels but cannot know thanks to history's tendency to forget women's work. "It's a declaration of women's rights," she says.
The comedy is also a way to humanize war and revolution. Make no mistake, the slapstick humor and wry wisecracks are a means to an end. "It's a way of making any revolution feel as personal as it actually is. It's not just fighting for 'justice,' 'equality' in these abstractions, you're losing hearts and loves and Brothers and Sisters and kids and husbands," says Gunderson. "We see that in all the things going on in the world right now." She points to the iconic photo of Omran Daqneesh, the young Syrian boy sitting in an ambulance, his face bloodied, his body covered in ash, shellshocked, staring into the distance. "That's actually what's happening. Not the politics. In the grand scheme, it comes down to a little boy. And theater's great for that."
BroadwayWorld.com critic Brett Cullum says:
"Direction from Andrew Ruthven is strong and crisp... Costumes from Macy Lyne are fantastic, and the hand-painted set from Jodi Bobrovsky is charming. J. Mitchell Cronin gets to light some dazzling guillotine sequences, and Yezminne Zepeda's sound design is superb."
"The acting is immaculate... Bree Welch's Marie Antoinette that knocks the comedy bits out of the park and make the show sing. She brings pitch perfect timing to every line, and in the end creates the most rounded revolutionary of the evening."
"This is a top-notch first rate production that serves Main Street Theater well..."
Read the rest of the review here: "THE REVOLUTIONISTS Serve Girl Power at Main Street Theater"!
THE REVOLUTIONISTS closes October 2. Remaining performances are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Main Street Theater - Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd. For tickets, call 713.524.6706 or visit MainStreetTheater.com.
Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Cast members in the Houston regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Cast members in the Houston regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Cast members in the Houston regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Cast members in the Houston regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Cast members in the Houston regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's THE REVOLUTIONISTS at Main Street Theater. Photos by: Pin Lim/ Forest Photography
Videos