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| Credit: Jasmin Hunter Photography |
Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh is at the Player's Ring until May 25th!
More information/tickets HERE.
After having a photo-shoot andinterview with the cast and director of Marie Antoinette: The Color
of Flesh, last week, I believed myself
prepared. I arrived on opening night to a transformed Player's Ring,
the familiar black box now accommodates a country painting studio and
an opulent chamber at Versailles, respectively. The first volley of
scandalous talk was no surprise- I was prepared for a
"confection", a scandalous story of court intrigue, love
and betrayal. But from that point forward, I was unprepared.
Joel Gross's play on the intimate and
complex relationships between a ladder-climbing painter, the innocent queen, and the fiery philanderer that
first forms the bond between them, is so much more than tabloid indulgence. While certainly
dripping with the language of flirtation, all giggling aside, these advances are always flavored with
a dark undercurrent of consequence. There is weight to every decision made, no moonlight
liaison is without its repercussions in the dangerous world of intrigue at court. As the characters
age and the marzipan facade of Versailles becomes consumed at the edges, the outside world boils over
into the lives of even the most privileged and the lifelong machinations of every
player in the game are torn to shreds in the oncoming storm of
revolution.
This play rests on the impressive
shoulders of its three players. The sheer number of lines memorized to bring this forgotten sort
of tete-a-tete to the stage is staggering, but the leads handled the task with fortitude and
success. They thoroughly melted into their parts, completing the picture begun by the talented set
designer. Danica Carlson, as the conniving Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, carefully avoids the tropes of
the fallen and grasping woman. Without being shrill, she demonstrates vulnerability. Her steady
hand and dedication to her character is a constant reminder that there are no villains in this
piece, only human beings, long-suffering and often wrong. We see her ambition, her capacity for great
love, and her fear. Most compelling is her relationship with the queen, a thing of such stark moving
power that I am affected even now, as I write this.
The philandering Count Alexis de Ligne,
played by Spotlight Award winner Knate Higgins is a familiar person. Swept up in the conviction of
youth, he leaps into conflicts with half-informed ideas, feeling himself alone aware of the
injustices of class at work in the darkness of Paris. There are not so many liberal arts students out
there who cannot relate to that fire and sureness. Higgins convinces us that there is depth yet to
Alexis and his transformation from a boy who believes there are horrors to a man who knows them
personally is sensitive and believable.
Finally, Jennifer Henry
brings us the portrait of Marie Antoinette that inspires the love and dedication of Le Brun and de Ligne with
the passage of time. Her performance drives the veracity of all of the
relationships that follow, moving from an innocent playing at royalty
to a true Queen in a dank cell with great dexterity. She revives Marie Antoinette and gives her a second chance in the court of public
opinion, a fitting homage to a young woman who was remarkably misunderstood, as she was never given
any opportunities to understand.
Time passed so quickly inside the
theatre, I was astonished first when intermission came and then again when it was the end. Through the
complete dedication of the players and crew, I was absorbed into this world and exposed to its
underbelly. Far more than confection, Back Alley Production's "Marie Antoinette: The Color of
Flesh" is food for thought. This piece is sumptuously set, beautifully acted, and produced with sensitivity and love. Go to be entertained, but also challenged and deeply effected.
