ongoing – Sat. Sept. 29 

“Heads will roll” say the little button pins, there for patron snatching, in the foray, placed in a basket at the A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center. The play in question, up through Sat. Sept. 29, is “Marie Antoinette,” a quasi-musical, and a Harvard/Yale collaboration. And if there’s one thing us history-challenged, America-centric Yanks know about sweet Marie is that she indeed got her head chopped off by Robespierre and his angry gang, at some point after suggesting if the peasants didn’t have enough bread to eat, why didn’t they eat cake. Two things, then about the play: Heads don’t actually roll. (I really thought they might; five years ago, the A.R.T. staged a frighteningly realistic hanging of Fagin in “Oliver Twist”) And Marie, a fab Brooke Bloom, can seem dim and cloistered one moment and sharp as a tack the next. She does utter the “Let them eat cake” line but it’s kind of tossed off to a friend who’s trying to keep some kids quiet; it’s not a Proclamation of Ignorance to All.
    A lot else goes on in this surreal, two-hour and fifteen minute play (a wise talking sheep, anyone?) written by David Adjmi and directed by Rebecca Taichman. It zigzags between zinger-packed comedy and loud, somber drama, and tosses in some Gaga-esque dance numbers to boot. Credit choreographer Karole Armitage, for those. As we entered the theatre, the blond bouffant-wigged Marie and her eight dressers were gaily dancing and prancing about to Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” (foreshadowing!), mixed with some dance tracks.  Life was festive before the fall. Marie is never happier then when she’s dancing or changing queenly dresses – she feels like a butterfly – and Gabriel Berry’s 18th century costuming is superb.
     The somewhat clueless King Louis XVI (short and pudgy Steven Rattazzi) loves her, but isn’t quite sure what to make of her and her antic. She wishes he’d let her enjoy her prancing about, admonishing him, “Has it ever occurred to you to just run France?”
     Marie, though, is aware of the buzz outside Versailles. “There’s a lot of animus toward us,” she notes. (Animus: big word for an uneducated girl, but there’s a lot of that here. She claims to be “practically fucking illiterate,” but she ain’t. She may not be school-smart, but she’s whip-smart about some issues and naive about others. Marie, the youngest daughter of the Hapsburg king and queen, has been born and bred to become who she’s become: French royalty. She married Louis at age 14 and is 37 as she nears the end. Once beloved by the nation, she is now a symbol of all the pomp, pageantry and privilege gone wrong. When she’s later accused by the rabble of being an “Austrian whore” she muses, why not just whore? Why the Austrian whore bit? She also notes that since they’re saying she was a lesbian and also blew all the King’s guards, wasn’t there something a little awry in the royal rumor mill? How can she have done both?
      A question I had before this all started: Would Marie be portrayed as a snooty, detached simpleton – someone we can’t wait to see offed - or with some depth and range? The answer is, mostly, the latter. Yes, she’s pretty ignorant of life outside the luxury lane. You can certainly consider her uncurious. Pampered is all she knew and at one point she explains to her prison guard that queenly grooming and queen-like behavior was just her normal. He retorts that his normal was seeing that the monarchy be overthrown with extreme prejudice. In a sense, they’re just playing their parts.      Marie is something of a petulant smartass, but a beguiling one at that. Complaining about Louis’ erectile dysfunction and their relationship in general, she says, “This romance turned out to be a very long suck on a very dry prune.” Ouch. Marie has a fondness for obscene limericks too. But she’s haunted and trapped by the gilded palace, and feels she’s become the go-to blame gal. “Everything I touch just shrivels up and dies,” she says.  (Louis does get an operation, can perform and magically, they have a son, who joins them later. Also, there are a few other kids, never part of this play. Time frame seems a little scrambled.)
     Louis, too, senses something’s going wrong. “I met the Assembly,” he says. “They seemed so angry. The public debt has tripled.” Yes, Adjmi has woven modern day class warfare into this story. How could he not? It’s true, too, that they wanted to stage this at Harvard in September before it moves to Yale next month, all before the election. I’m pretty sure this play will continue to persuade Obama supporters that he’s their man and Romney supporters will get angry at the proletariat. As the turmoil mounts, Louis advises calm and reason. “I think we need to keep our heads,” says he. (Can you blame Adjmi for these kind of lines? I do not.)
     Now, when it all comes crashing down for Marie and company (end of Act 1), it really comes crashing down. With a sonic boom. (“It is our specialty to do great dumps of dirt,” A.R.T. artistic director Diane Paulus said after the play was over and the post-party cast, crew and company were eating cake [cupcakes] and sipping wine.) The noise and darkness is a signal that the fun really may be over. A former theater critic friend who saw the play e-mailed me later: “I got sad realizing NO MORE CHOREOGRAPHY and with the stage covered with black cork fragments …”
    Yep, Act 2 is something of a downer. Impending death and doom does that. It does start with a snippet of the Rolling Stones “Under My Thumb,” a quick fun bit of mean ‘60s pop that also signals tables being turned. Marie and Louis flee Versailles, dress as farmers and meet a couple of shopkeepers on their journey toward what they hope is anonymity and freedom. Not so fast. They’re tripped up when the town folk query them about the windmills Louis is so happy to have spotted. They must be ornamental! he exclaims. He’s seen those kinds of things before. Nah, the regular folk – increasingly sensing they know who this couple really is – say windmills are used to grind things. The novelty of windmills being charming and quaint? Eh, no. Off to prison!
   “I am your king, still!” Louis proclaims.
   “No, you are shit and you will die and France will live,” he is told.
    Louis ponders that for a moment. “I don’t see why they’re mutually exclusive.”
    Marie reasons, “Because people cannot take care of themselves, democracy cannot work. … I’m so sick of hearing about America. America is a doomed experiment. This revolution will eat you alive.” (She may have a point, given our current state in 2012.) As it winds down, a guard (Brian Wiles) is aggressively cutting Marie’s hair (you know, for guillotining purposes) and he breaks the rules to talk with her about her and Louis’ transgressions and the people’s plight. (The talking sheep, a puppet handled by the calm and collected David Greenspan, also explains how things went wrong to Marie. Perhaps, he is part of a voice-of-reason dream sequence for her.)
     Marie’s execution is, as I mentioned, not depicted. Louis, too, is done in before her, off-stage. (As an Alice Cooper and GWAR fan, I confess some disappointment here. Guillotines are so bloody and so bloody efficient.) Rather, she, post-life, in her final scene, discusses the humiliation of being thrown down on the guillotine, her neck locked in (can’t scratch a neck itch, as absurd as that is given the circumstances) and then finding herself with her head jammed between her legs and tossed in a nameless grave.
      Paulus said post-show some folks have raised the question: Why did this first-ever collaboration between purported rivals Yale and Harvard come about? And she answered it simply: “A bigger brain trust.” That brain trust put together a good 'un. Funny, tragic, food for thought.
Tickets: $25-$65.  Up Tuesday-Sunday. Evening performances at 7:30. Check website for various matinee times and days.

40 Brattle St., Cambridge, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org