Marie Antoinette

David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette, a star turn for Woolly company member Kimberly Gilbert, has some affinities with the 2006 film of the same name by Sofia Coppola, but it also recalls Adjmi’s Stunning from 2008: a sheltered, privileged young woman, bratty at times and certainly ill-equipped to deal with the wider world, is hobbled by the man in her life, someone who proves to be weaker than she. Adjmi’s Marie says, “I feel like a game that other people play, but not me.” As her marzipan and fondant world dissolves all around her, this Marie’s journey is to a smaller, quieter place where she acquires some measure of fortitude, even in the hour of her doom.

The theatrical exaggeration and the “snapshots” of the famous lines from history in this script and production remind us that what we think we know about Marie’s story is only framing, not knowledge at all.

As events fall out and the pretty venue of the Petit Trianon disassembles into Marie’s prison, the complex set changes (e.g., rolling up a grass carpet to expose an iron-mesh deck) call for visible crew members to make the shifts—a rare, welcome sight at Woolly. Indeed, is this disassembly or dissembling: how many layers of artifice do the technicians need to peel away?

Sarah Marshall’s work as Sheep is expressive, even though her puppet has no articulation, just a head stuck on a pole. Ominous and playful, sometimes a head cock is all that’s needed.

  • Marie Antoinette, by David Adjmi, directed by Yury Urnov, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington

    Changes- Changes- Changes: 2

    Sometimes your vote really does count. In the commonwealth-wide elections of 2013, 907 votes decided the attorney general’s race; the gubernatorial election was determined by a slightly wider margin (56 thousand votes out of 2.2 million). The happy result: newly-elected Governor McAuliffe and A-G Mark Herring chose not to defend indefensible law, and today, less than a year later, same-sex marriages are legal in Virginia. This is a change that I knew would happen eventually, but I am almost (pleasantly) shocked at how quickly it has come to pass.

    In the most recent development, gay and lesbian couples are free to adopt in the Commonwealth. Our friends J. and L., who left the area some years ago so that they could start a family, are now welcome. Well, Virginia is for lovers.

    Serialized

    Good advice (i.e., advice I agree with) accompanied by useful local lore and an extra helping of snark: Washington City Paper‘s manual of style and usage.

    NoMa
    M is uppercase, but feel free to grumble about it.

    * * *

    Penn Quarter
    Neighborhood south and west of Chinatown defined better by the overconcentration of José Andrés restaurants than by definitive boundaries.

    * * *

    theater
    Not theatre, except as part of a proper noun. We don’t know how the obsession with French spelling arose, but we’re not playing along. Studio Theatre, you’re doing it wrong. Howard Theatre, WTF? Signature Theatre, just stop. You’re making our spellcheck misfire and our copy editors gnash their already worn-down teeth. Take a hint from our star pupil, Arena Stage’s Mead Center for American Theater, or we may start calling you thee-AT-ruhs.

    Ellanor C. Lawrence Park project: 2

    chicken beforechicken afterOne of the learning objectives of this class project is to observe changes in the forest over the course of a season. I stumbled upon an unexpected case of before-and-after with this log, seen in two images. The image at the left was made on 27 September; the one on the right today. The bright yellow, striped fruiting body, just little blobs on the log in September, is the mushroom Laetiporus sulphureus. It’s an edible polypore known by various common names, including Sulphur Shelf and Chicken of the Woods.

    Blue Ridge forests

    readysimply redOur first class field trip, examining forest ecosystems of the mid-Atlantic, visited three spots in Shenandoah National Park. Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) (left) was in fruit in Buck Hollow, on the flank of the Blue Ridge. And up top, we found Mountain Holly (Ilex montana) (right) likewise offering red yummies; the holly’s fruits have four seeds each.

    Katydids were singing at mid-day, clearly understanding that “last call” was imminent. On the Stony Man Nature Trail (which I last walked in May), Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) was blooming like crazy. We also made the acquaintance of Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), a milkweed of the woods, and Mountain Maple (Acer spicata), which looks like Striped Maple without the stripy bark.

    I scooped up a American Carrion Beetle (Necrophila americana) for everyone to admire. And Stephanie identified a trio of Table Mountain Pine trees (Pinus pungens) across Skyline Drive from the Stony Man Overlook parking area. I’d like to make a map of everywhere P. pungens can be found in the Park.

    Ellanor C. Lawrence Park project: 1

    StonyBoxieMy class field work assignment this fall consists of studying a forest locale over multiple visits. Even though I love to hang out at Huntley Meadows Park, I chose the eastern tract of Ellanor C. Lawrence Park: it’s a little bit closer to Reston, a little wilder, and just generally a place I don’t know well. Today’s trip was a getting-to-know-you walk for me. I found the lovely ruins of this stone wall, which marks the boundary between the park and the residential subdivision. And I came upon this very handsome Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) taking its time going down the trail.

    I heard it through the grapevine

    Verifiable knowledge makes its way slowly, and only under cultivation, but fable has burrs and feet and claws and wings and an indestructible sheath like weed-seed, and can be carried almost anywhere and take root without benefit of soil or water.

    —Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (1954), II.4., p. 134