Student Voices: Madeleine Murphy on “Marie Antoinette”

Our second student blog post was written by Madeleine Murphy (IAC 2014-15). Maddie wrote about the WLP's trip to see the play "Marie Antoinette" at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC.

Learning about the life of Marie Antoinette through the lens of David Adjmi's play was a fascinating experience. His

work painted Marie as more likable than her reputation and a product of her environment, which was a pleasant portrayal compared to the image of her as the heartless, bourgeois ruler we learn about in middle school French class. Adjmi's play accomplishes an exposure of Antoinette's emotional journey for his audience. Even though the play was a modern reworking of the French queen's history, the audience could imagine Marie Antoinette's inner battle during the rough years leading up to her death. While I found the first act of the play to be an excessive showing of Antoinette's "fast" life (which reminded me of Sofia Coppola's film style in her adaptation of Marie Antoinette), the second act truly revealed the emotion and psychological breakdown of not just the queen, but the woman behind the walls of Versailles. The physical breakdown of the set as the play progressed, including the graffiti-covered walls, only accentuated Antoinette's trauma for me in an artful way, as well as the transformation of the mirror into a guillotine. Adjmi's work intrigued me and taught me about the queen, but I admire it most because it was an emotional exposé of an often misunderstood figure.