Performance Network Theatre has extended its run of “Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh” by Joel Gross through Sept. 4 due to the positive reception the play has received from audiences and critics.

The play, a work of historical fiction, uses both truths and rumors surrounding the life and times of the 18th century French queen as launching points. The plot is fueled by a love triangle between Marie Antoinette (Chelsea Sadler), her real-life portraitist Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun (Jill Dion), and the fictional character Count Alexis de Ligne (Drew Parker), who is partially inspired by Antoinette’s rumored lover Count Hans Axel von Fersen of Sweden.

“Audiences are really responding to the show, just as we expected they would—the breathtaking costumes and scenery, the sharp wit, the touching love story—there’s a little something for everyone,” David Wolber, Performance Network’s artistic director, said in a prepared statement.

In previous AnnArbor.com coverage the production’s director Shannon Ferrante pointed out that while the period piece is set in the past—beginning on the eve of the French Revolution and continuing 20 years—“the story is so topical now. A lot of what happened during the French Revolution was the separation between the rich and the poor, and all of this stuff about taxation. I think it echoes a lot of what’s going on with America right now,” she told AnnArbor.com

Wolber reports that audiences are enjoying this aspect of the play. “Even the politics of the time are really mirroring what’s happening in America today. The biggest laugh of the whole show is almost always when the character of Alexis speaks of the national debt growing like a monster feeding on its young,” he says.

Read a review of the play on annarbor.com.

Performances happen Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., with a 3 p.m. matinee on Saturday, August 27. Tickets can be ordered at the Performance Network Box Office at 734-663-0681, online at www.performancenetwork.org or by coming to the Performance Network Theatre (120 East Huron St., Ann Arbor, 48104) Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. or one hour before a performance. Tickets are priced at $25 to $41, with discounts available for seniors, members, students and groups.