Do Monarchs Dream of Talking Sheep

Ryan McKittrick: I had always thought this play was a response to the recession, so I was surprised to learn that you wrote it in 2006.

David Adjmi: It’s pathetically more relevant now than it was when I wrote it during the Bush Administration.

How did you start working on the play?

I was at the MacDowell Colony, and I was there to work on another project. But it was a very complicated project and I was driving myself crazy. I had never been in an artists’ colony before, so I was getting really panicked by the sheer latitude that I had every day. I didn’t know what to do with myself and I started having a meltdown. So I thought, “I’m not going to write this play anymore.” And I decided to read Veronica, Mary Gaitskill’s novel about a model. I was enjoying reading the book, and then I remember having this flash—“I’m going to write a play about Marie Antoinette.” I walked down to the public library and got a bunch of children’s books. Then I looked on the internet for two or three days and wrote down everything, just to get the timeline. And then I frenetically wrote the play as quickly as I could. The play just flew out of me. It was a very strange experience.

What drew you to her?

DA: I think of Marie Antoinette as someone who is striving for a kind of integrity, but she doesn’t necessarily have the tools or the compass to know what the criteria are for that integrity. And I think that idea very much fits into my body of work. I remember showing the play to my agent at the time, and she said, “Oh my God, that’s Richard II.” And I remember looking at Richard II and seeing the parallels. Marie learns to become a queen when it’s already too late.

So Marie Antoinette learns something by the end of your play?

I think she’s beginning. She’s beginning to understand that she doesn’t know anything, and she’s beginning to understand the vastness of this domain of the unknown. Or maybe there are things that she knew, but wasn’t sensitized to. Like that the people were starving. She says that explicitly in the first scene, but she doesn’t understand the significance. She also says, “Countess Brandeiss always let me skip my homework.” Which is true. They were very lax with her. She wasn’t bred to be a thinker. And she was kind of sold off and married very young, which was part of these political machinations. And she just went along with it, like we all do sometimes in life. What she went through was horrible, in the end. And in the play you see her struggling to understand what is going on. It’s sort of like if Paris Hilton were imbued with tremendous subjectivity all of a sudden and could see what she’s doing.

Do you feel sorry for Marie Antoinette?

I do. I feel like she was misunderstood. I don’t know how much of it I invented, but when I was writing the play I felt that I communed with Marie Antoinette. I know that sounds crazy, but it really was a strange experience writing it. I have alot of empathy for her, and a lot of love for her. I think that shows in the play. I’m not trying to sugarcoat her, and I’m not sentimentalizing what she did or what she didn’t do. But I don’t think she knew what the hell was going on. She was part of this vast machinery that she didn’t create. There were so many people holding up a mirror, saying, “No, it’s great.” So she just sort of said, “Okay.” She wasn’t negated by anyone until the end. But by then it was too late. And I think that’s really interesting. I’m not judging her. I’m trying to understand her, and at the same time poke fun at her a little bit. It’s very playful.

I laughed out loud the first time I read your play. But at the same time I was also very moved. Do you think of this as a comedy? A tragicomedy?

I think of myself as a Cubist because I compress things that are disparate and see how they all go together. Things vault from tone to tone in my plays, just like they do in life. And I want to show people that this is all part of one existence. So I think I’m always busting open genre. Because genre is an artificial organization in which we know what to expect, and I’ve never felt that in my life. I’ve felt very disorientated and kind of traumatized, and I’ve always wanted to articulate that experience in my plays. Even if it might be jarring for audiences sometimes. I’m just not really at home in the world, and I’ve never felt that way. I really do feel like E.T. I’m actually working on a book right now and writing a lot about E.T., because I remember being so profoundly moved by the film when I was little. But E.T. got to leave this world and I have to stay here!

Did you always have a talking sheep in this play?

Always. When I read about Le Hameau [the rustic retreat at Versailles built for Marie Antoinette] I just thought it was so comic. I don’t know where exactly the talking sheep came from. But sometimes you just have to make certain aesthetic choices and keep going. You can’t stop yourself. When the sheep started talking to Marie Antoinette, I thought, “This is so stupid. I don’t want to put talking animals in my plays. I’m not Shari Lewis!” But I actually love the sheep.

Could you tell me about the visual world for this production?

It’s so decadent, so blown up. The set designer Riccardo Hernandez calls it “phantasmagorical Versailles.” It’s sort of like Versailles on acid. The world of the play is not literal, so the design has to take on a kind of exaggerated, stylized quality. It’s been really fun—the design meetings have been heaven for me. It’s the best design team ever. Everyone is very engaged and passionate about their ideas. We fight sometimes, but it’s hysterical.

What has it been like to work on this play during the Occupy Wall Street movement?

It’s been surreal. Absolutely crazy. The tremors of this earthquake started a long time ago. There’s something that needs to tumble, and I think it’s going to happen. I do believe there is a certain kind of historical progress. It’s slow, but I think we’re seeing it.

Ryan McKittrick is the A.R.T. Dramaturg and co-head of the Dramaturgy Program at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.