The Revolutionists Make Their Stand at ArtsWest
The play begins in darkness; suddenly the sound of a swishing guillotine shatters the theater’s silence. A miffed actress protests, “That’s no way to start a comedy!” And we’re off into the wonderful world of a Lauren Gunderson play. It is not surprising that Gunderson is currently the most produced playwright in America. With works like “The Book of Will” and “I and You” she has pushed the boundaries of conventional theater, exploring big and little ideas with a charming, imaginative wit that seems to continually ask “What if?” In “The Revolutionists”, published in 2018, Gunderson imagines a series of surrealistic encounters among four key women figures that played roles in and were finally victims of the bloody French Reign of Terror in the early 1790’s.