I’ve had Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” stuck in my head ever since I saw Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. When the song hit us, as we sat patiently in the dark of the CoHo theatre, it was enough to make people do little dances in their seats. Alice Birch’s script doesn’t call for specific music—or any music—but it’s a perfect fit. All the adaptations Third Rail Repertory made to Revolt’s open-ended directions are energetic, prescient, and intelligent. They really outdid themselves on this one.
At the outset of each of Revolt’s sparsely staged scenes, one of the play’s four actresses danced in the light of an overhead projector (backed by fast-paced Le Tigre or Bikini Kill) and threw down transparencies spelling out the title of the next scene. “Revolutionize the Language. (Invert It.)” “Revolutionize the World. (Do Not Marry.)” And so forth. The first few times this happened, the CoHo audience responded with mildly lecherous hoots. After all, what is a woman doing dancing in the glow of a scholastic overhead projector if she doesn’t want to be catcalled? I honestly don’t know why that happened, but it is why Birch’s Revolt exists. The actresses won’t tell you—don’t have time to tell you—but Revolt isn’t a play to catcall. Revolt, if I haven’t made it clear, is a rebellious and frequently hilarious interrogation of modern womanhood and fourth-wave feminism.
