Review: 'Marie Antoinette' dabbles in a culture that kills her

The first word I wrote in my notebook while watching "Marie Antoinette" Saturday night was "wigs." After that, I wrote "dresses," and "diamonds." As if I was likely to forget.

Opulence is almost a living character in Walking Shadow Theatre's production of David Adjmi's play about the extravagant queen of France who went to the guillotine in 1793. The royal ladies at the Versailles court wear enormous heaps of cotton-candy-like hair above farthingale dresses so wide they need parking spaces. (Credit for the towering wigs goes to Robert A. Dunn, and the dresses are the work of Kathy Kohl.) As human-scale servants glide about in the background, Antoinette and her retinue gabble on about hairdos and bonbons.

"You and I are great friends," she admonishes another walking hairpiece over tea. "Let's not spoil it with facts."

The real spoiler, of course, is that Antoinette is destined to lose her head. The first intimations of doom come from a supernatural sheep, but soon enough they are shouted by angry mobs.

About that sheep: He's a poignant symbol of Antoinette's tragic flaw. Unhappy with the stifling life of the Versailles court, she affects a longing for the simple Austrian shepherd culture of her youth (as Viennese royalty, but never mind). Because money is no object — to the contrary, she sees lavish living as a monarch's credential — she builds a little faux-rural hamlet for herself and her hangers-on to hang out in. They wear designer versions of milkmaid dresses and carry shepherd's crooks. When Antoinette invites a companion to drink tea from a bowl instead of a cup, she cheerfully explains, "It's more peasanty."

Meanwhile, the real peasants are becoming more murdery.

Eventually Antoinette realizes the peril, and she persuades her husband, the doughy King Louis XVI, to flee with her and their son. They are on the point of making good their escape when, inexplicably, she begins asking rural people patronizing questions about windmills. Her blather reveals the disguised family as king, queen and dauphin instead of the farmers they pretend to be, and the game is up. In a drama about an aristocrat's descent into hell — credible, even when accompanied by a talking sheep — it's a scene that cries out for a dramaturg's critical attention.

More about that sheep: He's played with charm and menace by the hyper-limber Neal Beckman, who starts out as Lambchop and finishes as Wolverine. In between those extremes, he is an articulate interpreter of the queen's conundrum. This is a play that uses words like "heterodox" and "apotheosis," so an erudite sheep fits right in.

A blunter indictment of Antoinette comes from one of the revolutionaries who have seized power: "While you paraded around in your peasant costume," he tells her, "real peasants were starving to death."

Jane Froiland portrays Marie Antoinette as a believable tragic figure whose upbringing has in no way prepared her for death in the real world. She is neither very evil nor very likable, but she is clueless about why a system that raised her to be the way she is should turn against her. She lived the opulent lifestyle that was expected of her, nothing more.

She does utter the legendary line, "Let them eat cake," but not in reference to peasants who lack bread. Context is everything. At the end, her devastation is convincing and complete.

"Marie Antoinette" plays through March 4 at Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis.