PLAY GUIDE
EVERYMAN THEATRE G REAT STO RI ES, WELL TOLD.
#bmoreeveryman
A NOTE FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR By Vincent M. Lancisi, Artistic Director
I
t brings me great pleasure to introduce you to playwright Lauren Gunderson. Or maybe you’ve encountered Lauren’s incredible plays before? I wouldn’t be surprised as she’s the most produced playwright in America, if you exclude William Shakespeare! American Theatre magazine annually surveys all professional non-profit theatres in the country and comes up with a list of most produced plays and their playwrights. Lauren edged out giants like Eugene O’Neill and August Wilson for the 2017/18 Season. This is her first professional production in Baltimore. Lauren’s plays are so smart and are wildly different in style and subject matter. There are over twenty in all. Her writing is always sharp, creative, and ultimately optimistic. She sees the world through an inventive and original lense that creates circumstances that are intoxicating to experience. She writes about fascinating women. She writes Christmas stories like Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly, knowing that people like Christmas plays and they also love Jane Austen. She writes funny historical dramas about women in science, EMILIE: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight and Silent Sky. Her political dramas about amazing women reduced to footnotes in history and walk a
EVERYMAN THEATRE
| 2
tight-rope of funny and tragic, survival and being heard, as is true in The Revolutionists. She has a new play about the search for, printing, and preserving of Shakespeare’s words called The Book of Will. It’s a funny and heartfelt journey about a writer’s legacy. If you’re curious about this play, it’s playing at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda during the run of The Revolutionists. The Revolutionists attracted me because like its author, the play is smart and has an edge. It’s also bold in its depiction of famous and should-be-famous women in history, looking at the past through contemporary eyes. These revolutionists are brave and fascinating women, they certainly aren’t given their due in history books, often cited as crazy, even heretical if cited at all. By using comedy as a weapon, Lauren Gunderson catches us off guard and through our laughter we make important discoveries about the truths of these women. They were fierce women with conviction who tried to make a difference. And did I mention it’s a comedy? I am committed to producing more great plays by first rate new playwrights like Lauren Gunderson. It is the golden age of playwriting, especially for women, and I want to provide a stage for these essential voices to be heard. The resident company here at Everyman has always been committed to presenting plays that span the history of theatre and now we want to be sure to include dynamic new voices in the repertoire.
EVERYMAN THEATRE
Vincent M. Lancisi, Founding Artistic Director Jonathan K. Waller, Managing Director
presents
THE REVOLUTIONISTS Playwright LAUREN GUNDERSON Director CASEY STANGL
Olympe de Gouges....................................................................... MEGAN ANDERSON* Marie Antoinette......................................................................................BETH HYLTON* Charlotte Corday......................................................................................EMILY KESTER* Marianne Angelle.................................................................................. DAWN URSULA* Set & Projection Design
Lighting Design
Costume Design
DANIEL ETTINGER
ELIZABETH HARPER
DAVID BURDICK
Sound Design
Dialects
Fight Choreography
C ANDREW MAYER Wig Design
ANNE NESMITH
STEVE SATTA Dramaturgy
ROBYN QUICK
LEWIS SHAW Props Master
JILLIAN MATHEWS
Stage Manager
CAT WALLIS*
Time and Place: Paris, The Reign of Terror (1793) A safe place, a study, a prison cell, the Tribunal. Then the scaffold. This production will be performed in two acts with one intermission.
PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES. NO TEXTING. NO EATING IN THE THEATRE. The Revolutionists is presented by special arrangement with The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Avenue, 33rd Floor, New York, NY 10010. Commissioned and first produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production or distributing recordings on any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author’s rights and actionable under United States copyright law. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
SPONSORS
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 3
THE PLAYWRIGHT Lauren Gunderson
Curtains Up on Careers: An Interview with playwright Lauren Gunderson...
LAUREN GUNDERSON BIOGRAPHY Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Lauren M. Gunderson is the most produced playwright in America of 2017, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award, the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award. She is also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Three-Year Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at companies across the US, including South Coast Rep, The Kennedy Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The O’Neill, The Denver Center, San Francisco Playhouse, Synchronicity, Berkeley Rep, and many more. She co-authored Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley with Margot Melcon, which was one of the most produced plays in America in 2017. Her work is published at Playscripts, Dramatists, and Samuel French. Her picture book Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon was released from Two Lions / Amazon in May 2017.
Where are you from originally and when did you first develop an interest in theatre? Born and raised in Georgia outside of Atlanta. I wanted to be an actor at first and even as a young kid found my way to the stage. When and why did you decide to pursue playwriting professionally? It was something I came to after performing in new plays as a kid in Atlanta and realizing that people still wrote them! I felt the power and vision a playwright could wield and wanted to write stories with more roles for women. I haven’t stopped since. How has your past shaped the writer you are today? I grew up in the South and read the profound writing of southern women like Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, and Toni Morrison. I knew that women should write, have to write. Describe the experience of watching your work performed. Complex! Exciting and nerve-wracking.
EVERYMAN THEATRE
| 4
How was The Revolutionists born? A footnote led me to Olympe de Gouge’s story and I gasped out loud when I read that there was a feminist political playwright who was executed during the French Revolution. I had to know more. I’d always been fascinated by Marie Antoinette and charlotte Corday so they were obvious characters. Marianne came from further reading and reckoning with the fact of France’s (much like America’s) call for freedom which was also convergent with their oppression of African slaves. In what way do you see The Revolutionists challenging and engaging the audience? I was blown away by the similarities between their time and ours. Distrust of government, huge gap between the rich and poor, racism, sexism, extremism, violence in the streets. That makes me sit up and pay attention to that moment in history and ask myself how that can help me unpack our era now. Unpack your writing process. Is it messy, clean? What do you need in order to explore character’s dramatically?
DRAMATIC FIVE 1. Favorite Food: CHEESE 2. Your Happy Place: A cheese shop that's next to a book shop? In Paris? Yes, please. 3. Dinner Date from History: Let's aim high and say Jane Austen and William Shakespeare 4. In my cup you'll find: Lots of coffee. 5. Spirit Animal: I don't want to belittle indigenous traditions that truly hold spirit animals in profound regard, but I can acknowledge the bond I have with my small grey cat, Mitten. She has no sense of humor and yet still manages to crack me up daily.
I always start with a vision of the ending. That allows me to write toward something, which helps me write quickly and purposefully. What you wish you could tell your high school self now that you know what you know? Don’t care about what other’s think so much. You have a purpose without any of them. Do you have a favorite playwright? Who inspires you in the craft? Lynn Nottage! The voice of our age. A genius. What stories do you feel most alive in exploring? Stories of sisterhoods. How do you deal with writer’s block? Are there stories you really want to write, but you just can’t? I don’t believe in writer’s block. You can always write something. Something is the first step to something great. You have to put something on the page to know if you’re going in the right direction, and if there’s a real story there.
LAUREN GUNDERSON ON... ...the Role of Women in Theatre Today: The moral beacon of theater. The ones who are challenging the old narratives and proving through excellence and artistry how many new ways of telling stories of value there are. ...Sense of Humor: There's a reason the adages say "faster, funnier" and "brevity is the soul of wit." ...History Onstage: It's like time travel isn't it? Getting close to another era, another culture, another reality is pure theatre magic. I'm addicted to writing about the past because it makes us confront our present.
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 5
THE PLAY SETTING
This story unfolds in 1793, Paris against the backdrop of The French Revolution and Reign of Terror. The play chronicles the lives of four revolutionary women played out in a study, prison cell, Tribunal, and scaffold.
Run on the Tuileries on 10. Aug. 1792 during the French Revolution (Jean Duplessis-Bertaux, 1793)
Liberty Leading the People (Eugène Delacroix, 1830)
THE CONFLICT
EVERYMAN THEATRE
| 6
Four women search for the right words and actions to ensure their impact on a world full of conflict in this bold, brave, blisteringly funny new work about feminism, legacy, and standing up for your beliefs. Join us on a revolutionary journey and discover how and why these women’s lives end on the chopping block and what resonates with us today.
THE CHARACTERS “A story is more alive than a fact. A story is what lives.” -Olympe, The Revolutionists (page 87)
“I call it ‘Meta Theatre.’ The point is to be a little confusing.” -Olympe, The Revolutionists (page 60)
What is “meta”? A prefix used to denote thinking or work that is self-referential to a genre or pushes past its original boundaries. The Revolutionists weaves historical and artistic references throughout the entirety of the play. Check out our Meta-Moments to be in the know!
Olympe De Gouges (pronounced “oh-lawmp day-gooj”) wrote controversial plays, novels and pamphlets on social and political issues with titles including The Necessity of Divorce; Black Slavery, or The Fortunate Shipwreck; and France Saved, or the Tyrant Dethroned. Her pamphlet “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen” was written in 1791 in response to the absence of women’s rights in the revolutionary manifesto “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen”. Recurring Symbol: The Quill Pen
Marianne Angelle (pronounced “mahr-ee-onn awn-gel”) is not based singularly on any one woman in history. The name “Marianne” is a compound of “Marie,” which means rebellion, and “Anne,” translating to favor or grace. The name was originally coined by those in opposition of the Revolution; to call the Republic of France “Marianne” was to liken it to a peasant. The name was later adopted with a positive connotation, used by patriots to label the feminine symbol that had emerged as the standout representation of liberty and the Republic. Recurring Symbol: A handwritten letter
The Character: 38. Theatre nerd. Excitable. Passionate. What she wants: To finish her play. To write something profound. Telling Quotation: “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.” Meta-Moment: Olympe is suffering from writer’s block and finds inspiration in the other characters’ stories much as she supports the uprising. THE REAL WOMAN
OLYMPE DE GOUGES
THE CHARACTER, PLAYED BY
MEGAN ANDERSON
The Character: 30s. A tough, vigilant free woman from the Caribbean. She is a spy working with her husband, Vincent. What she wants: For Olympe to write her a declaration or pamphlet highlighting the fight for her cause.
THE REAL WOMAN
MARIANNE ANGELLE
THE CHARACTER, PLAYED BY
DAWN URSULA
Telling Quotation: “Declarations. I wrote my own…. ‘We, the free and proud women and men of SaintDomingue, deny the unjust power of France and her agents of torture and greed. The sun of this island shines on an independent nation of liberty not property.’”
Meta-Moment: The character is given the very name that was attached to the national symbol of the French Republic, which represents liberty and logic. The statue given this name signifies opposition of dictatorship and represents the Goddess of Liberty.
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 7
THE CHARACTERS Charlotte Corday (pronounced “shar-lut core-day”) At age 13, Charlotte’s mother died. She was raised in a convent by nuns. Charlotte’s perspective about the rights of individuals was inspired by the writings of leading figures during the Enlightenment Period in France. This literature turned her from a monarchist to a “republican,” one who believed that France should enact a constitution and have some form of representative democracy. Charlotte planned and assassinated political leader Jean-Paul Marat by stabbing him in THE REAL WOMAN the chest and severing his carotid CHARLOTTE artery. Charlotte was quickly taken CORDAY into custody and brought to trial. She was killed by guillotine four days later. The Jacobins ordered an autopsy to determine whether she was still a virgin because of the strong belief that she had been driven to commit such a shocking act of violence because of her love for a man. The results showed that she was, disproving the rather counter revolutionary sentiment that a woman was incapable of political violence by the sole virtue of her gender. Recurring Symbol: A Long Steak Knife
Marie Antoinette (pronounced “Mar-ee Ant-won-ett”) is the youngest of 16 children raised by loving parents, the passing of her father at the age of 10 deeply impacted her. Arranged marriage to Louis XVI at the age of fifteen in 1770 solidifying a Franco-Austrian alliance. Marie took the throne in 1774 and ultimately had two children though the public did not embrace her as mother figure as rumors of infidelity and infertility haunted her. A polarizing figure, she was was equally disliked by the royal elite and the lower class both for being Austrian as well as for THE REAL WOMAN her extravagant lifestyle and little MARIE care for the manners of the day. ANTOINETTE History paints a one-sided picture of a complex woman who loved her husband and followed him in execution on October 16,1973. Recurring Symbol: Ribbons
EVERYMAN THEATRE
| 8
CONTINUED... The Character: 25. Seriously determined country girl and assassin. Serious and motivated by her sense of morality. Never been kissed. What she wants: To kill Jean-Peal Marat and have Olympe write her her last words. Telling Quotation: “I killed one man to save 100,000.”
Meta-Moment: Jean-Paul Marat was a French politician, physician, and journalist during the French Revolution. He led the radical THE CHARACTER, PLAYED BY Montagnard faction of the Jacobin EMILY political group who advocated KESTER democratic measures and vocally opposed aristocracy. Charlotte planned and assassinated political leader Jean-Paul Marat by stabbing him in the chest and severing his carotid artery. This story was captured in the play The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade. It is an innovative drama, a play-within-a play set in the Charenton Asylum in 1808, the Marquis de Sade stages a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, using his fellow inmates as actors.
The Character: 38. Bubbly. Graceful. Opinionated. What she wants: Someone to tell her real story and “better press.” Telling Quotation: “When everyone else is losing their heads, it is important to keep yours.” Meta-Moment: Olympe chooses to focus her attentions on Marie as a “revolutionary,” to the surprise of the other women. It is through Marie, that Olympe can make her ultimate point: THE CHARACTER, PLAYED BY
“The play could save us both… By showing you learning a goddamn lesson for starters. By showing people that revolutions needn’t be so bloody. That they can be kind and creative. I’m telling you, your Majesty, this play. Will be. Important.”
BETH HYLTON
TIMELINE
THE EVOLUTION OF THEATRE AND IT’S REVOLUTIONARY EFFECT ON THE WORLD
465 BCE
The Greeks performed in enormous theater spaces outdoors. These spaces were acoustically intelligent allowing sound to carry throughout the space, which could seat up to 14,000 people. Because actors played to such large audiences, they wore masks to ensure they could be seen—and the stories could be followed—from a distance. In 465 BCE, backdrops were introduced. Known as a “skene,” this was similar to today’s set in its representation of the story’s environment.
532 BCE
The Ancient Greeks are often honored as the founders of theatre as we know it. In 532 BCE, Thespis was the first known actor. In Greek culture, annual religious festivals featured performances of well-known stories, shared to honor the gods. While theatre has grown exponentially over many centuries, it largely maintains the celebratory sense infused by the Greeks, and created a precedent for theatre as we know it today.
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is born. His handle on the English language remains unparalleled nearly five-hundred years after he was born. Not only did he influence story structure and playwriting, but he provided us with a character-driven plot model, in which characters’ objectives and actions drive stories forward. He additionally introduced a mixing of genres (the “dramedy,” for example), which offered theatre artists new ways of captivating audiences and diversified storytelling.
1564
Theatre was primarily a luxury reserved for aristocrats and the wealthy of society prior to Shakespeare. His Globe Theatre provided opportunities for those who could not afford costly seats to be able to see plays. For a small fee, they could purchase standing room in the pit to see a Shakespearean play performed. Today, Shakespeare is the most filmed author, with 420 feature films and TV-movie adaptations based on his plays. In 2016, he was named the Best-Selling Playwright of all time, with an excess of 4 billion copies of his work sold in the 400+ years since his death. The Globe Theatre
1660
Margaret Hughes was the first woman to appear in a role onstage, as Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello at the Vere Street Theatre.
Margaret Hughes
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 9
TIMELINE
CONTINUED...
1920
Charles S. Gilpin was the first African-American actor to portray a black character on Broadway. Until then, black roles on Broadway had been performed by white actors who used makeup to appear darker. Producer William H. Harris, Jr. hired Gilpin to play a character based on abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the play Abraham Lincoln. His performance as Frederick Douglass was so striking that Eugene O’Neill cast him in the title role of The Emperor Jones, making Gilpin the first black man to lead an integrated cast on Broadway.
1926
The Captive is a 1926 play by Édouard Bourdet. The three-act melodrama was among the first Broadway plays to deal with lesbianism and caused a scandal in New York City. The play was shut down after 160 performances and prompted the adoption of a state law dealing with obscenity.
1960s1990s
There was a surge in plays highlighting the AIDS epidemic, which both humanized those facing the disease and educated unknowing audiences. Angels in America and Rent are titles at the forefront of this category, examining HIV/ AIDS, sexuality, religion, society, and relationships. Both plays received Pulitzer Prizes, as well as myriad Tony Awards.
1998
Hedwig and The Angry Inch, a rock musical by John Cameron Mitchell with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, brought to limelight the story of a German-born, transgender rock singer, and was hailed by Rolling Stone as “the first rock musical to ‘truly rock.’” John Cameron Mitchell (middle left) in Hedwig
2015
Broadway boasted its first musical featuring a lesbian protagonist in Fun Home; it won three Tony Awards. Sydney Lucas, Beth Malone and Emily Skeggs in Fun Home
2015
Hamilton, the musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, detailing Alexander Hamilton’s life, is the first of its kind. Incorporating a diversity of musical styles, the play’s appeal to the general public is absolutely unprecedented. It won eleven Tony awards, a Grammy award, and the Pulitzer Prize. “Our cast looks like America looks now, and that’s certainly intentional; we’re telling the story of old, dead white men but we’re using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience.” Hamilton has been widely celebrated by American audiences for its story and music, broadening the reach of theatre to otherwise unexposed fans. Perhaps more impressively, however, it has created opportunity and work for actors of color.
2017
The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson comes to Everyman Theatre.
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 10
Brayden Simpson in August Wilson’s Fences at Everyman Theatre during the 2015/16 Season. Photo by Stan Barouh.
SYMBOLISM By Justin Cash, The Drama Teacher
A
dding the use of symbol in a student drama performance is a difficult task. But when symbol is weaved successfully into either classroom drama or professional theatre, it adds sophistication that places the show on a whole new level. A symbol implies a greater meaning than the literal suggestion and is usually used to represent something other than what it is at face value. Symbolism in the theatre can be achieved via characters, colour, movement, costume and props. Symbolism began with a group of French poets in the late 19th century and soon spread to the visual arts and theatre, finding its peak between about 1885 and 1910. French poet Jean Moreas published the Symbolist Manifesto in 1886 that greatly influenced the entire movement in the visual and performing arts. Symbolism in art implied a higher, more spiritual existence and aimed to express emotional experiences by visual means. In the theatre, symbolism was considered to be a reaction against the plays that embodied naturalism and realism at the turn of the 20th century. The dialogue and style of acting in symbolist plays was highly stylised and anti realistic/nonnaturalistic. As theatre is often a blend of the visual and performing arts working in harmony, many of the sets and props in symbolist plays were also anti realistic/non-naturalistic and were often used to symbolise emotions or values
in society. A huge throne could symbolise power, a window placed in a set could symbolise freedom in the outside world or a simple action by a character could symbolise a greater ideal in the context of the play. Marie and Charlotte both become the FRATERNITE. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! The national motto of both France and Haiti today. Fraternite in English translates to brotherhood, yet it is a feminine noun. This male presence of “brotherhood” is symbolized by the masked characters who carry out the silencing of each woman at the Guillotine. In 1890 French poet Paul Fort opened the Theatre d’Art where many symbolist plays were performed. The primary symbolist playwrights included Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck and Frenchmen Auguste Villiers de L’IsleAdam and Paul Claudel. Other playwrights who dabbled in the form included Swede August Strindberg (most closely associated with expressionism in the theatre), Irishman W.B. Yeats and American Eugene O’Neill.
Comprehension: What was the symbolist theatre movement a reaction to? Reflection: Identify the variety of symbols present through this play. What do they mean and how do these representations reinforce key themes?
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 11
Exécution de Marie Antoinette le 16 octobre 1793. (Artist Unknown)
5 MYTHS ABOUT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION By David A. Bell, The Washington Post, July 9, 2015
T
Number One: When told that the starving poor had no bread to eat, Queen Marie-Antoinette replied, “Let them eat cake.”
France’s national holiday actually commemorates two separate events: the fall of the Bastille fortress in Paris to revolutionary crowds on July 14, 1789, but also—because 19th-century legislators wanted something less bloody to celebrate— the massive, peaceful “Festival of Federation” held throughout the country on July 14, 1790, to express the French people’s commitment to liberty and unity. To mark this year’s remembrance, here are the real stories behind five other canards.
Marie-Antoinette, while no paragon of humility or simplicity, had genuine charitable instincts toward poor people. But after 1789, her opposition to the French Revolution made her one of the most hated figures in the country. Misogynistic journalists depicted her as a murderous, hedonistic, sexually insatiable lesbian plotting to betray the country to France’s enemy, her native Austria (their pamphlets had titles like The Royal Dildo and National Bordello Under the Auspices of the Queen). The purported callous remark about the poor was just icing, so to speak, on the brioche.
wo hundred twenty-six years after the fall of the Bastille, the French Revolution stirs passions mostly among historians like myself. But many of the myths surrounding the revolution have proved more difficult to extinguish. Even the name Bastille Day is something of a misnomer.
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 12
Just three years ago, the New York Post not only repeated this myth but claimed that it “reputedly sparked the French Revolution.” In fact, the French word was not “gâteau” (cake) but “brioche” (a breadlike pastry), and the queen never made the remark. Versions of it, attributed to several earlier French rulers, circulated as early as the 1600s and appeared most famously in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, which was written before Marie-Antoinette even married the future Louis XVI. It expressed the widespread popular conviction that luxury-besotted royals neither understood nor cared for the famine-prone poor.
In the fall of 1793, less than a year after the execution of her husband, King Louis XVI, the revolutionary
government put Marie-Antoinette on trial for crimes that included the alleged sexual abuse of her son. Found guilty, she died on the guillotine. Number Two: The French Revolution was an uprising of the downtrodden.
What’s more, similar devices had been developed centuries earlier, including the nearly identical “Halifax Gibbet” in West Yorkshire, England, and the “Scottish Maiden,” which can be seen at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The guillotine remained in use in France as late as 1977.
Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is only the best known of many novels that portray France’s wretched poor taking revenge on their aristocratic oppressors during the revolution. (Not on the list, please note, is Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, source of the popular musical, whose climactic scenes take place during the Parisian insurrection of 1832, not the events of 1789). But the poorest of the poor played relatively little part in a revolution that began among wealthy nobles and professionals in meeting halls at Versailles, weeks before the fall of the Bastille. Even the dramatic popular violence that repeatedly drove the revolution forward was mostly carried out by men with more than a little to lose. In the countryside, as many historians have shown, it was directed against elite fief-holders, and the taxes and tolls they collected above all from well-off, entrepreneurial peasants. In the cities, the urban militants who called themselves “sans-culottes” (“without breeches”—i.e. those who did not dress like the wealthy) mostly came from the ranks of artisans, shopkeepers and clerks. Their leaders, though they often called themselves simple laborers, in fact included professionals and workshop owners. Number Three: The French Revolution invented the guillotine. In the popular imagination, nothing symbolizes the revolution more vividly than the guillotine, which became its principal means of public execution, accounting for some 16,000 deaths during the “Reign of Terror” of 1793-1794. No less an intellectual celebrity than the French philosopher Jacques Derrida has attributed the device to the revolutionary legislator and doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who himself barely escaped it after being imprisoned during the Terror in 1794.
1767 Portrait of Marie Antoinette at age 12. (Martin Van Meytens)
A depiction of Louis XVI’s execution by the guillotine. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
The book French Revolutions for Beginners gets somewhat closer to the truth, maintaining that while the device first saw the light of day during the revolution, Guillotin did not invent it. In fact, he opposed the death penalty, and advocated humane and painless execution by a decapitation machine as a first step on the way to the abolition of capital punishment altogether.
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 13
Number Four: Maximilien Robespierre was a bloodthirsty dictator. The figure most closely associated with the revolutionary Reign of Terror, Robespierre is widely seen, particularly on the European and American right, as a proto-totalitarian who lusted after absolute power. As Ann Coulter put it in her 2011 book, Demonic: “Hitler got his playbook from Robespierre.” Even Jonathan Israel of the Institute for Advanced Study, a somewhat more reputable authority, spoke repeatedly of Robespierre’s “dictatorship” in his 2014 history of the revolution.
toward its climax, he spent crucial weeks confined to his bed—“less... the man who ruined the Revolution than... a man the Revolution ruined,” to quote the historian Colin Jones. Robespierre’s unstable mental condition, and his inability to exercise dictatorial control over events, led directly to his fall and execution, along with several of his key allies, at the end of July 1794 (or, according to the new revolutionary calendar, the month of Thermidor, Year II). Number Five: The revolutionaries stormed the Bastille to free the political prisoners held there. This myth dates back to the revolution itself and still appears regularly every July 14. “On this day in 1789, crowds stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, which is where King Louis XVI kept his enemies,” NPR’s Steve Inskeep repeated just a year ago. It is true that during the 17th and 18th centuries, the French monarchy imprisoned hundreds of supposedly seditious writers—including, most famously, Voltaire— in the large, sinister fortress that loomed over eastern Paris. But it largely discontinued the practice years before the revolution, and on July 14, 1789, the Bastille held only seven prisoners: four counterfeiters, two madmen and a nobleman accused of sexual perversion.
Maximilien de Robespierre was an official during the French Revolution and one of the principal architects of the Reign of Terror.
Robespierre, a stiff-mannered lawyer from the northern French town of Arras, was just one of twelve members of the Committee of Public Safety, which exercised quasi-dictatorial powers for less than a year in 1793-1794. He was the committee’s most influential member, and his writings and speeches did more than anything else to define the ideology of the Terror. But the incessant demands of revolutionary politics took a heavy mental and physical toll, and as the Terror rushed
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 14
The Parisian crowds marched on it to seize gunpowder stored there so they could arm themselves against a feared attack on the city and the new revolutionary assembly by the royal army. The memory of the Bastille’s earlier role, however, gave its fall tremendous symbolic importance. Soon afterward, the assembly triumphantly ordered the building’s demolition. Incidentally, the column that stands on the site today does not commemorate the fall of the Bastille but rather the “three glorious days” of a later French revolution, in 1830.
Comprehension: What are common misconceptions about The French Revolution? Reflection: Many pieces of art showcase The French Revolution as a backdrop. Why does this period of history fascinate and make for compelling drama or comedy?
NOT THERE YET. WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO ACHIEVE EQUALITY FOR WOMEN IN THEATRE? By Marsha Norman, American Theater Magazine, November 2009 (Edited for length)
Marsha Norman
D
iscussing the status of women in the theatre feels a little like debating global warming. I mean, why are we still having this discussion? According to the NYSCA report, 83 percent of produced plays are written by men. And nobody doubts that the North Pole is melting, we see it on the news. These are both looming disasters produced by lazy behavior that nobody bothered to stop. End of discussion. What we have to do in both cases is commit to change before it is too late. Last spring, one of [my] former students, Julia Jordan, instigated a new study of women writers in the theatre, carried out by Princeton researcher Emily Sands. One of the most horrifying facts to emerge from this study was that women have a better chance of reaching production if they write about men than if they write about themselves. This past season, theatres around the country did six plays by men for every one by a woman, and a lot of theatres did no work by women at all, and haven’t for years. Why does the American theatre ignore its women writers? No other developed nation does this. American fiction and poetry don’t do this. The list of top American novelists, poets and short story writers is easily half women, and reflects all races and creeds. The problem is not that women can’t write. And it’s not audiences,
either—they like plays by women. Plays about women have won seven of the last ten Pulitzer Prizes. And plays by women make money too. Plays by women sell on average 3,538 more seats per week than do those written by men. Let’s look at the major players in this situation and see who’s saying what. At the very least, we can figure out what role each of us has to play in turning it around. Literary Departments One of the most disturbing findings of the Sands study was that literary departments can be reluctant to champion plays by women because they fear their artistic directors won’t choose those plays, and that will make the department look bad. The study also found that women artistic directors had the same fear, and thus failed to credit a work by a woman writer as having as much economic value as the same play with a man’s name attached. We have to stop letting staff and patrons fiddle with plays; literary managers need to stop second-guessing their audiences and their artistic directors. They need to adopt a gender-blind process for discovering and discussing new work. And they need to do this now. Artistic Directors Okay, they’re in a tough spot, too. They tell you that they have their boards of directors to satisfy, so they have to look for hits. And as for gender equity—they throw their hands in the air and say, “Women don’t send us their plays.” This one just kills me. Nobody
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 15
sends out their plays any more; plays come to theatres from agents, directors and actors, all of whom can be asked for plays by women. The truth is, artistic directors are too tired to look for any plays they don’t already know. But these plays are not locked away in drawers; all you have to do is ask for them. Artistic Directors, stop saying you can’t find great plays by women. Call the agents, call New Dramatists, call the Dramatists Guild, call the teachers. Call us. Funders, Donors and Patrons What do they have to do with this, you ask? They don’t write plays; they don’t pick plays. But funders have failed virtually across the board to ascertain whether the theatres they support are presenting the work of women and people of color. A few years back there were virtually no plays by writers of color on our stages. That is now unacceptable. The resulting work of women of color has been especially notable. But the number of women writers produced in America has remained virtually the same for a century. ...What is this cultural agreement that more than 80 percent of plays should be by white men, and everyone else can share the remaining 20?
The Writers Themselves This brings us to the final group that has been blamed for the under-representation of women in the theatre— the playwrights themselves. Women’s plays are boring, people say. They have too much talk and there’s no event. They choose “soft” subjects and aren’t aggressive enough about promoting themselves and their work. The problem is—and I say this having seen what feels like thousands of them—plays by men are not more violent or more active or smarter or raunchier or more tragic or more anything than plays by women. But plays by men are expected to be better even before they are seen, even before they are read—even, yes, before they are written. This is bias, pure and simple. Women’s plays are written by women, that is all.
Who Is Being Produced In American Theater? “The Count” was a study released in November 2015 conduted by The Dramatists Guild and The Lilly Awards between 2011-2014 to determine how often women were being produced professionally in theatres in the U.S.
If we need rules to give women equal access to American stages, then the NEA and all the big funders should impose these regulations on us until these numbers improve. The Endowment must take the lead here. Donors are another big player in the absence of women on the American stage. Women buy 70 percent of theatre tickets sold, and make up 60 percent of the audience. But year after year, they are mainly offered plays written by men.
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 16
This is not to say that men and women know the same stories. And this is the final argument for more plays by women on American stages: We need to hear all the American stories, not half of them. If American theatres want to produce the best work, they will have to find a way through our own cultural issues in order to grant equal status to the words and work of women. A theatre that is missing the work of women, is missing half the story, half the canon, half the life of our time. That is the situation we have now.
Who Is Being Produced In American Theater? “The Count” was a study released in November 2015 conduted by The Dramatists Guild and The Lilly Awards between 2011-2014 to determine how often women were being produced professionally in theatres in the U.S.
As women writers, we must demand the best of ourselves. We must travel and learn and listen. And then we must claim our place on the American stage. We have to be more aggressive in this regard and help each other more than we have, and not just side with the boys because we expect them to win. Finally, communities must insist that critics be removed who prove they cannot judge the work of women without snide condescension and dismissive ire. We need more women critics, and we need them to write without the expectation that a woman’s work will be less significant than that of a man. And when they like a piece by a woman, they need to write without the fear that they themselves will be found lacking for admiring the work of a woman. In her book Writing a Woman’s Life, Carolyn Heilbrun says: “Power consists to a large extent in deciding what stories will be told.” That’s the challenge here. We have to commit to telling all the stories of this country. We need to make some new rules for ourselves, and do our jobs fairly. We need to see what they actually are when we read them. We should’ve done this a long time ago. But we can do it now. We can even up these numbers and then we will never ever have to read or write this article again. And then we can get to work on the climate.
READ MORE... See Marsha Norman’s full 2009 article here: bit.ly/RevPlayGuide-NotThereYet See a follow up article on gender parity in theatre written in 2015 from American Theatre: bit.ly/RevPlayGuide-GenderParity2015 See visualized statistics from this 2015 article here: bit.ly/RevPlayGuide-GenderParity2015-Stats See another update from American Theatre in 2017: bit.ly/RevPlayGuide-GenderParity2017
Comprehension: In Marsha Norman’s findings, what factors have contributed historically to the lack of representation for female playwrights and people of color onstage? Reflection: This article was written six years ago. Do you see progress? Research the current statistics here and compare and contrast realities.
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 17
GLOSSARY Allons-y: A French phrase meaning “let’s go.” Bastille: A medieval fortress in Paris used as a prison in the 18th and 19th centuries. Considered a symbol of the old, monarchical order, the Bastille was famously stormed by angry Parisians on July 14, 1789 and was later demolished. Brava: The feminine expression of “bravo”, an expression of applause or approval. Cathartic: Describes an event or story that releases strong, especially pent-up, emotions in its audience. Comédie-Française: The national theatre of France and the world’s longest-established state theatre. Comment: Pronounced “kahm-ahn”, a French word meaning “how” or “what” as a question. Constitutional Monarchy: A system of government in which power is shared between a monarch, such as a king or queen, and a government such as a republic or democracy organized by a constitutional document or tenets. Consummate: Extremely skilled or accomplished; of the highest degree. Egalitarian: Adhering to beliefs in the equality of all human beings in social, economic, and political affairs. Egalité: French for “equality.” Part of the motto of France: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” or, “Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood.” Exposé: A public piece of writing disclosing damaging or discrediting information. Exposition: The introduction of background information in a narrative, usually near the beginning of the story. Fleur-de-lis: A stylized image of a lily flower with three petals, commonly associated with the French royalty. Frivolity: Lightheartedness, a lack of seriousness. Something unnecessary or silly. Fugue: A rhetorical or musical composition structure in which one or two themes are repeated and interwoven with variations by successive voices. Hyperbolic: Exaggerating or overstating the truth. Jacobins: A powerful political group during the French Revolution in power between 1793-94 known for their extreme egalitarianism and violence. Loquacious: Talkative, tending to talk overly much. Maim: To permanently wound or injure someone. Manifesto: A public declaration of aims, particularly of a political candidate or group. Martyr: A person who willingly suffers death at the hands of someone wanting them to renounce a belief. Martyrs are often celebrated by those who share their beliefs after their deaths. National Assembly: The revolutionary, parliamentary body formed by the common people during the French Revolution. The National Assembly opposed and eventually deposed King Louis XVI. Oui, c’est vrai: French phrase meaning, “yes, it is true.” Place de la Revolution: A public square in Paris where many executions by guillotine were held during the Reign of Terror. Now called the Place de la Concorde.
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 18
Plutarch, Parallel Lives: A series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans arranged in pairs to highlight their moral virtues and failings written by the Greek philosopher and essayist Plutarch during the first century. Prologue: The introduction of a literary or dramatic work, usually setting the scene, introducing characters, and beginning themes. Pundit: A person who delivers their opinions with (often overestimated) authority, usually through mass media such as writing, radio, or television. Reign of Terror: The period of the French Revolution between 1793-94 when the Revolutionary government persecuted and executed more than 1000 actual and perceived “enemies of the revolution.” The Republic: The First French Republic, the revolutionary government established by members of the Third Estate, or common people, between 1792 and 1804. The French government is now ruled by the Fifth French Republic. Revisionism: A political, social, or historical philosophy favoring changing or evolving the status quo rather than completely throwing it out as in a revolution. Sardonic: Disdainfully or skeptically humorous; derisively mocking; sarcastic. Satirize: Deride and criticize using humor, irony, and exaggeration to expose the ridiculousness the stupidity of others, particularly in regard to politics. Slander: The crime of making a false statement damaging to a person’s reputation. Sociopolitical: The combination of social and political factors in sociological analysis of individuals and groups. Sororité: French for “sisterhood.” Sovereignty: The authority of a state to govern itself; supreme power or authority. Thomas Paine’s Declaration: Thomas Paine, a Scottish immigrant to the United States, wrote his pamphlet The Rights of Man in 1791 after a visit to revolutionary France. Its central proposition is that revolution is permissible when government is not serving the needs of its people. Torrid: Full of difficulty or tribulation; ardent, passionate. Touché: “Touch” in French; said to acknowledge the validity of an opponent’s point in debate or an opponent’s hit in fencing. Tribunal: A court of justice; board, panel. Vigilante: A self-appointed doer of justice, sometimes a member of a group formed to undertake law enforcement when the government forces are perceived to be inadequate. Vilify: To speak or write about in an abusively disparaging manner. Vindication: Clearing someone of blame or suspicion. Vive la Republic! Vive la France!: French patriotic expression, literally meaning “long live the Republic, long live France.” The Widow Capet: Referring to Marie Antoinette after the execution of her husband, King Louis XVI. The royal family was known by their surname Capet after the September 21, 1792 when the monarchy was officially deposed and the National Convention became the governing body of France. Zealot: A person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 19
POST-SHOW DISCUSSION Use these questions as a launchpad for conversation...
Production • What production elements contributed to the overall mood achieved in this play? How did they work together to support a unique and dynamic world of the mind? • What resonates with you in this production? What was successful? What was challenging? Character • How do these characters evolve over the course of the play? What are the lessons they learn? • How are these women connected? What brings them together? • What historical events can you identify in the play? • In what way are each of these women Revolutionists? Theme & Content • What role does theatre play in society today? • Do you feel words or action have more impact? How much do actions say? What can words do? • How did you experience the structure of this play? • In what way are you a revolutionist? What revoluations have you experienced in your own life?
YOUR THOUGHTS... Use this space to jot down any thoughts that arise before, during, and/or after the performance.
You can bring this with you to the theater and log your thoughts during intermission or on the bus after the show. Then, bring this to the Post-Show Workshop to share with a guest artist.
I was surprised by/when…
The most memorable scene was when… because...
I was impacted most by the scene where...
I was confused by… or I wonder why...
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 20
EXTENTION PROJECTS Be the Playwright... The Revolutionists at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Directed by Eleanor Holdridge. Photos by Mikki Schaffner.
Do actions speak louder than words? Charlotte Corday, the young assassin, is looking for the right words for her final scene. Marianne finds her voice and writes her own declaration of belief. How do you want to be remembered? Be the playwright and write your own declaration. What do you believe? How do you want to be remembered? What are your parting words? Each student writes one sentence. Put these together to form a monologue. Memorize and perform.
What do you believe? How do you want to be remembered? What are your parting words?
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 21
THEATRE ETIQUETTE When you come and see a play, remember...
Respectfully enjoy the show. While we encourage you to laugh when something is funny, gasp if something shocks you, and listen intently to the action occurring, please remember to be respectful of the performers and fellow audience members. Please turn off or silence all electronic devices before the performance begins. There is no texting or checking your cell phone during the show. The glow of a cell phone can and will be seen from stage. Photography inside the theatre is strictly prohibited. Food and drinks are not allowed in the theatre. Food and drinks should be consumed in the Everyman lobby before or after the show, or during intermission. Be Present. Talking, moving around, checking your phone, or engaging in other activities is distracting to everyone and greatly disrupts the performance’s energy. Stay Safe. Please remain seated and quiet during the performance. Should you need to leave for any reason, reentrance to the theatre is at the discretion of the house manager. In case of an emergency, please follow the instructions shared by Everyman staff members. Continue the conversation. After your performance, find Everyman Theatre on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and use #BmoreEveryman to tell us what you thought!
CURRICULAR TIE-INS From the stage to the classroom...
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3 Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
EVERYMAN THEATRE | 22
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives. NATIONAL CORE ARTS STANDARDS Anchor Standard #6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. Anchor Standard #7. Perceive and analyze artistic work. Anchor Standard #8. Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work. Anchor Standard #11. Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.
DEEPER DIVE
Take a closer examination of the world of The Revolutionists by visiting these resources. A Comprehensive & Interactive Guide to the French Revolution www.history.com/topics/french-revolution
The Ultimate Dramaturgy Site therevolutionists.tumblr.com
The French Revolution In A Nutshell https://youtu.be/VEZqarUnVpo
The Reign of Terror www.historywiz.com/terror.htm
SOURCES
Sources used to currate this Play Guide include... “Charlotte Corday.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, vol. 29, Gale. 2009.
www.britannica.com/biography/Olympe-de-Gouges
www.laurengunderson.com
www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-the-Rights-ofWomen
www.thedramateacher.com/symbolism/
www.olympedegouges.eu/
www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/marianne
www.iep.utm.edu/gouges/
www.abelard.org/france/marianne.php
chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/293/
www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/ theater/2015/06/05/15-lgbt-themed-plays-and-musicalschanged-society?pg=1#article-content
marshanorman.com/not_there_yet.htm
www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/hamilton-american-musicalchanged-musical-theater/5224/ www.playbill.com/article/pivotal-moments-inbroadways-black-history-com-342101 www.octaneseating.com/the-impact-of-williamshakespeare-on-theater www.ancient.eu/Greek_Theatre/ tobysimkin.com/theatre-timeline/
THIS PLAY GUIDE CREATED BY Brianna McCoy, Director of Education Lisa Langston, Education Program Manager Brenna Horner, Lead Teaching Artist Abigail Cady, Education Apprentice Kiirstn Pagan, Graphic Designer
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-thefrench-revolution/2015/07/09/6f27c6f0-25af-11e5-b72c2b7d516e1e0e_story.html?utm_term=.eb592623613b www.americantheatre.org/2015/07/20/the-genderparity-count-ticks-up-slightly/ www.americantheatre.org/2017/09/26/the-genderperiod-count-the-more-things-change/ thelillyawards.org/initiatives/the-count/ The Revolutionists Dramaturgy Actor Packet, provided by production dramaturg Robyn Quick for Everyman Theatre
EVERYMAN THEATRE IS LOCATED AT 315 W. Fayette St. Baltimore, MD 21201 Box Office 410.752.2208 Administration 443.615.7055 Email boxoffice@everymantheatre.org
EDUCATION DEPARTMENT If you have questions about the Play Guide, contact our Education Department at education@everymantheatre.org or 443.615.7055 x7142
THE REVOLUTIONISTS PLAY GUIDE | 23
DESIGN YOUR OWN PRODUCTION IMAGERY For each production at Everyman, our Marketing Department works with artist Jeff Rogers to create imagery that conveys a visual story. What story does the The Revolutionists artwork on the cover convey? Now it’s your turn! Think about the play The Revolutionists and design a new image/artwork to brand the show. Keep in mind, this image could be used on posters, advertisements, billboards, television, internet, etc.