Marie Antoinette’s Head

In this campy comedy we follow Marie Antoinette’s hair dresser, Leonardo, as he pursues Marie’s severed head across time and space. The first panel of the triptych takes Leonardo to the Palace of Versailles, just after the Queen’s execution, where drunken peasants are being harassed by Rousseau while partying with the head. Then the play shifts to California’s Corcoran Prison, in 1994, where the guards were...
In this campy comedy we follow Marie Antoinette’s hair dresser, Leonardo, as he pursues Marie’s severed head across time and space. The first panel of the triptych takes Leonardo to the Palace of Versailles, just after the Queen’s execution, where drunken peasants are being harassed by Rousseau while partying with the head. Then the play shifts to California’s Corcoran Prison, in 1994, where the guards were staging gladiatorial combats between prisoners. Leonardo finds himself in the prison’s green room, with their combat becoming a game-show, hosted by Charles Darwin, and the head shamefully serving as the consolation prize. And finally Leonardo’s pursuit takes him to a Gnostic semen cult in 1st century Rome, on the day of the great fire. In the Roman catacombs, Nero spies on the cultists’ feast, while Leonardo gets caught swiping the head from their altar. Throughout it all the telephone keeps ringing. It’s Marie calling for Leonardo, and he always hangs up.
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Marie Antoinette’s Head

Development History

  • Reading
    ,
    The Flea Theater
    ,
    2007
  • Reading
    ,
    The Playwrights' Center
    ,
    2006