Marie Antoinette, France's Last Queen, Up Close and Very Personal
Marin Ireland in the role of Marie Antoinette and Karl Miller as Joseph/Mr. Sauce. Photo: Pavel Antonov
OMG, awkward! Marie Antoinette, like, literally told a room of 70 people why she and Louis aren’t pregnant yet. TMI.
Such is the tone of the opening act of Soho Rep’s lively production of “Marie Antoinette.” David Adjmi’s play is history seen through a lens of our celebrity-obsessed age that portrays the last French queen as an apparent soulmate of the likes of Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus.
The production on Walker Street is a pared-down interpretation of the play first seen on big stages with room for big sets and big wigs at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. But the Soho Rep version, still directed by Rebecca Taichman, packs a powerful punch with Marin Ireland, who also appeared at Yale, playing an unforgettable Marie Antoinette as a queen who speaks with the slack-jawed inflection so typical of the entitled of our age.
This is Marie Antoinette up close and personal in the style of a reality show, and luckily for us the run has been extended to Nov. 24 in response to de-mand. It’s a fitting choice for a theatre so close to what was Occupy Wall Street.
The play, which follows Marie Antoinette from her arrival in France as a 14-year-old bride from Austria to her appointment with the guillotine in 1793, is by turns funny, outrageous, poignant and thought-provoking.
The queen’s descent from absolute monarch to lice-infested prisoner unfolds on a set designed by Riccardo Hernandez, also from the previous production team, that consists entirely of billboard-high letters spelling out her name.
Words projected on the backdrop inform the audience they are now in Versailles, now in Marie’s fantasy farm complete with sheep that talk.
But back to the discussion of fertility, which comes up after Marie has humorously described her privileged life to two ladies-in-waiting over tea with towers of brightly colored macarons.
Inevitably the macarons prompt a “let them eat cake” line, but in an unexpected context. Marie appears to be a spoiled, foul-mouthed mean girl in a red bouffant strapless gown as fluffy as her big hair, “Three feet of hair is a workout I must say; I get neck aches,” she opines.
She henpecks her husband, Louis XVI, endearingly played by Steven Rattazzi. The king is obsessed with clocks but completely out of sync with his people. In this version of history, it takes a visit from Marie Antoinette’s brother to force the issue of why there are still no heirs.
The play races through the monarchy’s demise, and the rise of the people to the royal family’s hapless attempt to escape disguised as farmers, allowing Marie to reflect again on her love of nature. Here Ireland’s questioning of a shopkeeper is the epitome of clueless condescension, which will be cringingly familiar to anyone not entrenched in the one percent.
Later in prison, she is finally divested of her fine clothes, her hair chopped off in preparation for the execution. She seems to take comfort in the idea that her fame will outlive her and that she will be a celebrity for all time.
“But then I became the stuff of history,” she says.
David Adjmi is beginning a three- year residency at the Soho Rep. “Marie Antoinette” is a promising debut.
“Marie Antoinette” runs through Nov. 24. Soho Rep, 46 Walker St., 212-941-8632, sohorep.org. Tues–Sun, 7:30 pm, plus a 3 pm matinee on Saturdays.