The French Revolution Comes to Lafayette

The French Revolution Comes to Lafayette

PHOTO COURTESY TOWN HALL THEATRE

Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists premieres at the Town Hall Theatre Company, opening the 74-year-old community theater’s new season.

Ever since Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists had two staged readings at the 2015 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, it’s been a waiting game to see when and where her riotous comedy about the French Revolution would finally be produced in the Bay Area. The prolific 36-year-old Atlanta-born San Francisco playwright was named the most produced playwright in the United States last year, aside from Shakespeare, and she’s had works produced with an impressive array of local theaters as well, including TheatreWorks, Marin Theatre Company, San Francisco Playhouse, Crowded Fire Theater, Shotgun Players, Symmetry, Impact, Central Works, TheatreFIRST, City Lights, and Marin Shakespeare Company, with more popping up all the time. That’s to say nothing of plays such as the The Book of Will that haven’t even hit the Bay Area yet.

So what’s the lucky theater that gets to give The Revolutionists its Bay Area premiere? The answer may surprise you. It’s no other than Lafayette’s Town Hall Theatre Company, where the play opens the 74-year-old community theater’s new season.

The four-person play imagines an unlikely meeting between an eclectic assortment of women struggling to keep their heads (literally) amid the tumult of the French Revolution. One, ostensibly the point-of-view character, is feminist and abolitionist playwright Olympe de Gouges, played by Sarah Mitchell in Town Hall artistic director Susan E. Evans’ production. Another is Charlotte Corday (Heather Kellogg), the fierce assassin of draconian revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. Marianne Angelle (Kimberly Ridgeway), a Haitian revolutionary against the French occupation, is a composite character original to Gunderson’s play. Funniest of all is the comically clueless queen Marie Antoinette (Suzie Shepard), who’s just happy to be there. Watching the four of them interact in a strange sort of sisterhood is well worth the price of admission in itself.

The Revolutionists, Sep. 27-Oct. 20, Fri. and Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; $18-$30, Town Hall Theatre, 3535 School St., Lafayette, 925-283-1557, TownHallTheatre.com.

This report was originally published in our sister publication, the East Bay Monthly.