From “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court” to Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the juxtaposition of history's icons with familiar contemporary culture has never failed to amuse playgoers. At its best, this translation serves as a teaching aid, rendering the events of the past more accessible and its perpetrators more human. At worst, it trivializes their accomplishments and the significance thereof.
Whether David Adjmi's original purpose inclined toward the former or the latter in his account of Marie Antoinette, the "butterfly" queen whose execution marked the end of the French monarchy, there is no disputing his motifs lending themselves to neo-1960s agitprop caricature: our heroine and her posse make their entrance garbed like ante-bellum Katy Perrys in cupcake gowns and Day-glo hair taller than Julie Taymor's Lion King masks. She bullies her husband, King Louis XVI, like a big sister bossing a little brother. Her Disneyish play-farm confidantes include a pet sheep (not represented by a puppet, as Adjmi's narrative style leads us to expect, but by a live actor).
It's the perfect environment for a Rococo-a-go-go celebrity airhead but, unlike her persona, Steppenwolf company member Alana Arenas refuses to adopt the stereotype assigned her character. Since even scholars are unsure what to make of France's last royal consort—was she as callous as she was reputed to be, or was her vilification necessary to usher in the new republic?—Arenas stakes out her own territory to present us with a portrait of a willful teenage girl bred to play a larger-than-life role and ultimately destroyed for doing it too well. As Marie contemplates her fate from her prison cell, she considers the opportunities that might have brought her career to a different conclusion—perhaps siding with her adversaries—if not for the restrictions imposed upon her.
The Steppenwolf design team has crafted a stage picture overflowing with conspicuous consumer-porn to delight envious audiences. (A post-run auction of Dede M. Ayite's costumes could plausibly generate enough money to finance the next two productions.) Tim Hopper has contrived to visibly shrink his physique in approximation of the epicene, Tamberla Perry and Ericka Ratcliff make a loyal pair of BFFs, and Alan Wilder salvages a modicum of dignity portraying a fur coat-clad woolly-beast. Ultimately, however, the two-hour (with intermission) Marie Antoinette emerges chiefly a star-power turn—a challenge that Arenas confronts with a swagger and dazzle that wins our admiration and, later, a vulnerability likewise ensuring our sympathy.
