by Mia Kania

Even if you don’t know much about the French Revolution, you know it wasn’t an empowering time for women. Your knowledge of Robespierre may extend to “huh, isn’t that the dude who, like, did some crazy stuff during the French Revolution?” but you still vaguely recognize the name, at the very least. What history doesn’t tell you is that there were real, complex, layered women who embodied the title of “revolutionist” just as much as Marat, Robespierre, or even Napoleon; women who are overlooked and misrepresented by history.

For example, Marie Antoinette, arguably the most recognized symbol of privilege during the revolution, was perceived both then and now as just that, a symbol. Although her reputation is based almost exclusively on what society accredits as her most defining character traits–naive, privileged, and apathetic–the Marie Antoinette we know from history is nothing more than a caricature of the perception of women in revolutionary France. Even her infamous response to being informed that the peasants were revolting, “let them eat cake,” is now largely believed to be manufactured in order to demonize the French queen. Revolutionists hated Marie for her obsession with material goods and lack of sympathy towards the proletariat struggle and criticized her entitled, callow nature. What they failed to recognise, however, was that Marie was also a young woman separated from her family, immersed in an unfamiliar culture and language who had a whole lot of expectations forced upon her by accident of her birth. Gunderson’s goal in The Revolutionists is not to excuse her entirely of blame or collusion, but instead, to instill Marie with some of the humanity and integrity of which time and reputation have robbed her.

Charlotte Corday, the woman who stabbed radical journalist and politician Jean-Paul Marat, suffered similarly from the lashings of time and male French revolutionists’ misguided beliefs. While Marat’s legacy thrived thanks to his role as a martyr for the rebels, his name recognition today, and the play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss, Charlotte faded into obscurity. Her action may have left a permanent mark on history, but her independent and powerful persona is most often reduced to “the nameless woman who killed Marat”. The French Revolution’s androcentric narrative seeks to eradicate all of Corday’s agency, emphasizing how Marat’s murder and legacy influenced the revolutionists thinking rather than Corday’s own political statement or how her act forever transformed how women could participate in revolution. Through exploring her story leading up to her attack on Marat and her time spent in jail afterwards while obscuring the moment of violence itself, Gunderson restores Charlotte’s voice and story to its rightful place in the historical canon. 

Another woman who was a visionary and radical in every action she took, who dared to push the definition of equality beyond where male rebels believed it could extend, was Olympe de Gouges, French playwright and vocal activist. Olympe believed that a true revolution would give equal rights to the men and women of France, advocated for the abolition of slavery in the colonies, and died for her belief in this more inclusive equality. Olympe de Gouges spent her adult life composing political pamphlets, writing plays to advocate for gender equality, and shouting to make men hear even a whisper of her voice. She, too, suffers from male narratives dominating her story, making the most “relevant” part of Olympe’s life her trial and death. Gouges, an advocate of increased popular consultation, criticized the National Convention, calling its members “ambitious men,” a criticism which became a far greater factor in the decision to sentence her to death than was her public support of women’s rights. While this powerful woman wrote countless narratives, ultimately, she had no control over her own story. Her life, therefore, serves to highlight the fragility of the male power system, rather than the power and agency of her own sex.

Perhaps the woman who most truly embodies the title of “revolutionist” in The Revolutionists is the woman based most loosely upon the historical canon, Marianne Angels. Marianne is an amalgam of various women of color who sought equality during the French Revolution in order to raise up women’s realities not only in France itself but also on one of its island colonies, Saint-Domingue. Three years after the French Revolution began, the Haitian Revolution became one of the largest and the first fully successful slave revolt in history. Spurred by witnessing French citizens cry out against royal domination, both free and enslaved people of color on the island were inspired to demand freedom and equality through the same means as their mainland influence. While historical accounts of the French Revolution glaze over the hypocritical reign the French enforced upon the colonies, Marianne serves as a spokeswoman for those fighting against the tyranny of colonialism and slavery. 

Throughout the French Revolution, women were only mentioned to explain or emphasize the issues against which the French citizens were fighting. When women were not being used as a tool to shape communal thought or enrage or motivate the French people, they were completely excluded from revolutionary conversation, pushed to the side lines by men who believe women had no place in the fight. The Revolutionists, however, gives four women the chance to assert their status as true revolutionists. As we move towards more turbulent times in our own lives, it is necessary both to understand who inspired our revolutionary history and to push the boundaries of who can participate in revolution. The Revolutionists does just that.

Mia Kania is a student at Scripps College. She was a Marketing Intern at Central Square Theater during Summer 2017.