'The Revolutionists' combines wit, beauty and strong women

Apr. 9—Sisterhood remains powerful in Lauren Gunderson's "The Revolutionists."

A story of wit, beauty and strong women set during the tumult of the French Revolution, the show is based on four powerful real-life women who took on that revolution during the 1793 Reign of Terror.

The play opens at the Adobe Theater on Friday, April 14, running on weekends through May 7.

The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety.

Even though the four women never actually met, they were real and they included the playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen Marie Antoinette and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle (a composite of Haitian revolutionaries.)

The heroine Olympe de Gouges was also a social activist for causes like abolitionism and women's rights. She is best known for penning the pamphlet "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen."

She wanted to write a play about the revolution.

De Gouges was executed by guillotine for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government.

"She went before them with her 'Declaration of the Rights of Woman,' " director Georgia Athearn said. "She was watched after that. The generals arrested her for being sympathetic to Marie Antoinette."

De Gouges' old friend Marianne Angelle is from the Caribbean, an activist for freedom from slavery. Marianne shows de Gouges little sympathy, saying, "Being ripped from your country, stuffed in the belly of a ship, carted across the world and forced to break your back to make sugar for French pastries is a tragedy."

The two are joined by the soon-to-be-infamous Charlotte Corday, obsessed by her drive to kill the "sick, fundamentalist, political pundit who has caused the deaths of thousands of innocent people," the journalist and politician Jean-Paul Marat.

She carries a knife.

The former queen wants a rewrite to correct the inflammatory accusations that scapegoated her for the failings of her husband's regime.

"They all went to the guillotine around the same time," Athearn said, insisting this feminist play is at least partly comic.

"All of the women enter as if in a dreamscape. It's part reality, fantasy and dream fugue," she said.

"It's a comedy in that they're brought together in a light way," Athearn continued, "Yes, there's a guillotine, yes, there's death. But they're brought together in a very feminine, sisterly way. The dialogue doesn't let you slip into deep drama. This is a universal story told in the heart and bodies of women."

'The Revolutionists'

WHERE: Adobe Theater, 9813 Fourth St. NW

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 14, and Saturday, April 15; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 16. Repeats through May 7. Pay-what-you-will 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 4.

HOW MUCH: $15-$24, plus fees, at adobetheater.org, 505-898-9222