Theatre22 Presents “Festival of Revolution”

The Revolutionists (Truman Buffet Photography)

White (Truman Buffet Photography)

The Revolutionists and White

Theatre22

Through November 9, 2019

Theatre22 is present two plays in rotation and they are calling this a “festival of revolution.” The plays are The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson and White by James Ijames. To accommodate both plays, set designers Parmida Ziaei and Margaret Toomey had to design a set that works for both plays and lighting designer Ahren Buhmann had to arrange suitable lighting for both – with wildly different subject matters and different projection designs (Buhmann is one of the masters of projection design in town) and lighting emphases. I think Buhmann had the harder overall job there.

The Revolutionists

Gunderson’s play takes a look at four French revolutionist women from the lens of today. Her dialogue is current and slang-filled and also is clearly from a 21^st Century perspective on women, what their rights and responsibilities should be, and how they felt about their circumstances. She has real-life writer Olypme de Gouges (Angela DiMarco) being sought by blended-character Marianne (Anjelica McMillan) - who represents the real Haitian ex-slaves who somehow successfully managed to free their country from colonial overseers. Marianne wants Olympe to write exciting pamphlets for her to entice help for Haiti.

Then would-be assassin Charlotte Corday (Anastasia Higham) arrives demanding a “last line” from Olympe because she knows that once she kills Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist revolutionary who was demeaning the acceptability of women in the revolution and has influenced the tide of opinion toward subjugating women in society again, after the promise of the French Revolution allowing women to assume positions of power. Corday fully expects to head to the guillotine, but wants a stirring last line to pronounce!

Finally, Marie Antoinette (Shanna Allman) herself arrives, though what she wants Olypme to write is a bit more mysterious than obvious. She wants “better press” about herself and demands that somehow Olympe write her legacy.

However, Gunderson’s really funny portrayal of Marie and Allman’s delightful execution is the star of the script. Marie is a ditz and essentially an airhead, but very subtly that outer portrayal is revealed to cover a sad woman who knows she never had much agency in her life and is likely to die very soon as a symbol of monarchy that she was powerless to defend.

The four women bond over friendship, writing, words, and womanhood. Over all their heads is literally the guillotine and three of them go to execution in the play, excepting the Haitian composite. So in the midst of womanpower and bonding and all is death and the defeat of political acceptance for women.

It’s pretty complex. There is a lot of fun dialogue but Gunderson has definitely bitten off a lot to chew. Some of it lands very successfully, but some doesn’t quite work. Still it’s a terrific cast and a fun evening.

White

White is a whole other kettle of fish, as it were, and focuses on a Gay modern-art painter, Gus (Tyler Rogers) who is turned down for an exhibit by a good friend who is now the curator, Jane (Jennifer Ewing) because she wants to bring a fresh and diversified perspective to the museum. I.E. she wants non-white, non-male painters to be exhibited.

Gus then pitches a fit, enough so that his boyfriend, Tanner (Christian Quinto), a person-of-color himself, tries to explain to Gus that Gus has already had lots of success, and has benefited from white privilege, and that it’s quite acceptable to make room for non-whites who have not had those benefits. Gus not only refuses to understand Tanner’s teaching-moment, he decides to advertise for a black woman to masquerade as the artist and fool his friend into showing his paintings under a false persona.

Enter Vanessa (Shermona Mitchell). She’s an actor and auditions for this job but initially is turned off by the deception. Somehow, though, she talks herself into the idea that this is the road to the fame she desperately wants and is willing to create a new persona they create together. “Balconae Townsend” is made and paintings are presented to Jane as if painted by her.

Two aspects of this play are not at all straight-forward and wrestle with the Black experience of being seen by White Society. First, Gus declares, in a stereotype of Gay men, that he “has a Black woman living inside him” and suddenly, Diana Ross (Mitchell) appears to him! So, magic realism is part of this 90 minute play. Secondly, we learn from Vanessa that she has already changed her name once, from her family-given name that is hard to pronounce and spell, to become the socially-acceptable Vanessa that can more easily integrate into White Society.

When Vanessa takes on the Balconae persona, Balconae is the sassy, strong Black woman that supposedly does not care about public opinion and looks like the woman Vanessa longs to be. However, Balconae exists due to the lie that Gus helped create. So, Vanessa’ ego is already pummeled by her desire to be famous and there is no freedom in using Balconae to get there.

Ijames has packed a lot to think about into this play, as Gunderson has in hers. I think he is very successful in demonstrating the shallow and self-centered White Male perspective that Gus cannot escape, but other subjects might not be so clearly examined.

This cast is also talented and fulfills the characters well. Mitchell shines as both the conflicted Vanessa and the over-the-top Diana Ross. She gets to show all different sides of her talent to great effect and is a great reason to see this show.

White may be more difficult for some white folk to feel comfortable with, and that’s likely part of what Ijames wanted to accomplish. Kudos to Theatre22 for taking on two challenging and fun and interesting scripts and setting them off to great advantage!

For more information, go to www.theatre22.org or call 206-257-2203.