NEWS
“The Revolutionists” Performed at the Warehouse Theater Incites Powerful Thinking
A compelling quartet of badass women is delivering passionate episodes from the dark history of France over the past two weekends at The Warehouse Performing Arts Center with one more session to go. Their outstanding performances are powerful! And the new relaxed storyline delivers hopeful food for thought!
The four talented actresses from the Charlotte Conservatory Theatre deliver an alternative female version from France’s Reign of Terror with a comic twist in Lauren Gunderson’s brilliant play, “The Revolutionists,” with an amazing plot set in Paris. The storyline introduces a theme to which we can easily relate nowadays.
Reneé Welsh-Noel does a masterful job directing the four polished actors to incite comedic irony into the untouchable image of historic figures giving the audience the ability to imagine another perspective in their leaders of the day. Powerful!
As a writer, it’s easy to identify with the genre struggles faced by Olympe de Gouges. She is an active, feminist playwright eloquently portrayed by Lisa Schacher who confidently takes command of the stage with unadulterated strength, while struggling to command her story to behave.
“I can’t listen when I’m writing,” Olympe admonishes Marianne Angelle, a black, classy, free spy from the Caribbean, deftly played by Jane Elvire with delightful skill and grace. This emerging actress is going places!
Charlotte Corday, assertively portrayed with empathy and strength by Marisa Dibilio became known in history as the Angel of Assassination. Charlotte is hardened during her brief life experiences as the serious, righteous, never-been-kissed country girl who, at age twenty-five, assassinates the Jacobin activist Jean Paul Marat with a knife to save the Revolution. “I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand,” Charlotte Corday declared in 1793.
In Gunderson’s 2023 version, Charlotte declares, “It is to you, good people of France, that I must define these actions, I am doing this with the full knowledge that I will soon be in the quiet arms of Madame Guillotine…”
Whew! Brave and scary, isn’t it?
The fourth woman is the bubbly, graceful, fascinating, unintentionally rude former queen of France, Marie Antoinette, delightfully portrayed by Jennifer Adams who has graced Lake Norman stages before—in Charlotte Conservatory Theatre’s hilarious "POTUS" and in the Davidson Community Players production of "Christmas at Pemberley." Draped in ribbons and frills, Adams’ portrayal of Marie Antoinette is professionally comical—and polished!
The guillotine may have silenced the pen, word, and deed of these powerful women for a bit of time, but their daring sacrifice lives on. A badass writer, a badass assassin, a once badass queen, and a free visionary badass from the island of Haiti who might one day command their country’s reins.
Could it be?
Production of “The Revolutionists” will continue at The Warehouse PAC this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. I suggest you call for tickets.
If you are into well-produced, thought-provoking, good theatre, you will enjoy this play that I highly recommend.
Connie Fisher
Connie Fisher, neé Consuelo Carmona, is a Davidson resident who grew up in Mexico City where she became a journalist and acquired a taste for the theatre. Her preference for work behind the scenes led to an interest in writing reviews—Yale Rep among her favorite troupes. Connie is the author of "Doing it the Right Way," the biography of an Italian hatmaker. Her prose appears with 87 other international writers in "The Widows’ Handbook." An active, founding member of Lake Norman Writers, Connie just released her latest book, "The Mongrel, Bi-cultural Adventures of a Latina-Scandinavian Youth," a memoir about her years growing up in Mexico.