“Marie Antoinette” by David Adjmi

“Marie Antoinette” by David Adjmi

Fridays and Saturdays at 7 pm, Sundays at 2pm, April 12 – 28

Tickets available at cabrillo.edu/vapa/

Recommended age 12+

Dive into the extravagant and dangerous world of the French monarchy with David Adjmi’s “Marie Antoinette,” staged by Cabrillo College’s Theater Arts department and directed by Cabrillo Stage Artistic Director, Andrea Hart.

The play begins with all the pageantry and flourish of a party at Versailles, at the center of which is a confection of a young queen, created by a society that values extravagance and artifice. As the revolution picks up steam, cracks appear in the veneer and Marie struggles to understand her role in the unravelling society while her husband, Louis XVI flails between indecision and helplessness.

Inspired by the Occupy movement of 2013, the play firmly rejects tidy binaries, instead asking us to examine the society that leads to such extreme inequalities. From the light and breezy banter at the palace to the surging chants of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!” in the streets, Marie Antoinette holds a mirror up to our contemporary society that might just be entertaining itself to death.