arts & entertainment
A portrait of Marie Antoinette: From countless
portraits — many by the real-life Elisabeth Vigee-
LeBrun — Marie became known for her lavish lifestyle,
earning her the moniker, "Madame Deficit."
Bouddie
DramA
Romantic
historical ficti
takes the stag
at Ann Arbor `
Performance
Network.
's
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
Ann Arbor
J
oel Gross has not written about
an actual love triangle in his play
Marie Antoinette: The Color of
Flesh, but he has written
about actual historical
times meant to resonate
with today's audiences.
The drama, being per-
formed July 28-Aug. 28 by
the Performance Network
Theatre in Ann Arbor,
introduces imagined
Playwright
interlocking relationships
Joel Gross
experienced by the French
queen (Chelsea Sadler), portraitist Elisabeth
Vigee-LeBrun (Jill Dion) and a fictitious
aristocrat (Andrew Parker) named Count
Alexis de Ligne.
(The real-life LeBrun painted more than
30 portraits of the queen and her family
in six years; her work can be seen at the
National Museum of Women in the Arts in
Washington, D.C.)
As the three-character piece unfolds over
two explosive political decades, the revolu-
tionary 18th-century environment is shown
to be squeezing the middle class back into
extreme poverty while freeing the elite from
taxes.
"I write with historical background
because I find historical perspective is a way
to look at our own world," explains Gross
during a phone interview from his New York
home. "I've always been specifically inter-
ested in the 18th century."
The idea for this play and its imagined
love triangle began in a California museum,
where Gross saw a portrait by a painter
unknown to him. After doing some research,
he was intrigued to find that the artist was
quite fashionable during Marie Antoinette's
Natalie Schafer ("Mrs. Howell").
mila I Nate Bloom
LliNg
Special to the Jewish News
int
I C
R.I.P.
At Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of
TV's Gilligan's island and The Brady
WINK
jet Bunch, died on July 12 at age 94. In
Wilt 1988, Schwartz candidly told NPR's
) Terry Gross that he wanted to appeal
to a "middle-American audience" and
knew his rabbi was "not being realis-
tic" when the rabbi, half-jokingly, sug-
gested Schwartz should have named
the shows Goldstein's Island and The
Bernstein Bunch.
By the way, while none of the Brady
actors were Jewish, Gilligan had two
Jewish cast members: Tina Louise
("Ginger"), now 77, and the late
t o
40
July 21. 2011
Film Notes
Opening Friday, July 22, are Captain
America: The First Avenger, Friends
with Benefits and Tabloid.
Captain America is based on the
comic book created in 1941 by the late
Jack Kirby and by Joe Simon, who is
still alive at 97! The film is set in 1942
as Captain America,
a superhero dedi-
cated to defending
America's ideals, bat-
tles Hitler's head of
advanced weaponry.
Friends co-stars
Justin Timberlake
and Mila Kunis, 27,
as buddies who try
time.
"I learned that LeBrun painted Marie
Antoinette more than any other painter;' says
Gross, also a novelist and screenwriter.
"For any painter to get a job like that, she
must have been pretty great, and I became
curious about what was so special about her.
Then I was further intrigued by the fact that
she and Marie Antoinette were the same age,
19, when the paintings of the queen began.
"I had this image of two 19-year-old girls,
one of whom had become the queen of
France and the other growing up in the lower
classes, getting together in a very intimate
way. The woman stayed the queen's painter
until [Marie Antoinette was forced to leave
the throne]:"
Gross decided to explore the events lead-
ing up to the French Revolution through the
friendship he created on the page.
"I've always been interested in strong
women characters and certain hinge events
in history': Gross says.
"My first novel, The Books of Rachel, also
has a lot of contemporary resonance. It goes
back to the 15th century and covers climac-
tic events that reach to the present.
"In that story, like in the play about Marie
Antoinette, every one of the historical epi-
sodes is relevant to current issues. It begins
with the Spanish Inquisition and shows how
a very privileged family can't quite believe
the changes brought to their lives.
"Throughout the book, the reader gets
details of those very specific people that have
larger ramifications. As in all my work, I
tried to do a microcosm that reveals a mac-
rocosm. ,
Gross, whose father, David Gross, was edi-
tor of the Jewish Week in New York, always
wanted to be a writer. Steeped in English
for his bachelor's degree from New York's
Queens College and his master's degree from
Columbia University, he sold his first novel
and a story to the New Yorker while still in
college.
"The sale of the novel led to my getting an
agent and believing I could make a living as
to be intimate without any romantic
complications.
Tabloid is a documentary by Oscar-
winner Errol Morris (Fog of War), 63.
It tells the story of Joyce McKinney,
a 1977 Miss Wyoming who stalked a
young Mormon missionary all the way
to the U.K. He claimed she abducted
him, chained him to a bed and had her
way with him. She denied using coer-
cion. The incident
turned into a huge
Brit tabloid story.
Speaking of Brit
tabloids, the News
of the World/Rupert
Murdoch phone-
hacking scandal has
really raised the
Ed Miliband
political stock of Ed
a writer': explains Gross, whose theater debut
in Michigan is being directed by Shannon
Ferrante.
"Because of my interest in history, while I
was still very young, I started writing histori-
cal novels. They became my bread and butter.
"During that time, I started going to the
theater regularly, fell in love with it and
began working on plays. It's hard to make a
living writing plays, but the plays I was work-
ing on came to the attention of a talent agent,
who suggested that I work on movies:"
Working on books, theater and films
simultaneously, Gross has completed 10 nov-
els. This Year in Jerusalem deals specifically
with Israel, where he has visited many times.
Sarah: A Novel of Sarah Bernhardt recalls the
Jewish background of the actress.
Gross, who interrupts his days of writ-
ing with jogs in Central Park, is married
to actress Linda Sanders. His sister, Laura
Schor, writes about French history. His broth-
er, Marc Gross, has written a book about
financial markets.
"My artistic heart is in the theater more
than anything else," Gross says."Sometimes, if
I have an idea for a story, I try to write it as a
play first to get a sense of how the people talk.
"I just finished a four-character play,
The Queen of Spades, based on a story by
Alexander Pushkin, and I have other plays
in development. I'm also involved with a
film script about Sir Galahad in Dark Ages
England. I'm working on a musical about
John Dillinger. We are having a workshop on
the musical this month." I
)
Marie Antoinette: The Color of
Flesh will be performed July
28-Aug. 29 at the Performance
Network Theatre, 120 East Huron,
in Ann Arbor. Performances are 8
p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m.
Sundays and 3 p.m. Saturdays, Aug.
13 and 27. $10-$43. (734) 663-0681;
performancenetwork.org .
Miliband, 42, the leader of the opposi-
tion Labour Party.
Small Screen
The HBO series Entourage will begin
its eighth and final season 10:30
p.m. Sunday, July 24. In the series'
opener, the engagement of Sloan
(Emmanuelle Chriqui, 33) and lead
character Eric Murphy is endangered,
and super-agent Ari
Gold (Jeremy Piven,
45) and his wife
are still separated.
Comedian Andrew
Dice Clay, 53, will
appear in a recurring
role this season.
Andrew Dice
Clay