Marat/Sade

The persecution and assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade

The infamous Marquis de Sade has been imprisoned in the asylum of Charenton for endangering public morals. As a form of therapy the hospital’s patients are allowed to take part in plays, and de Sade sets out to dramatize the death of the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, who was murdered in his bath. With its cast of sociopaths, schizophrenics, and narcoleptics, Marat/Sade is a wild celebration of insanity, a terrifying pageant bursting with color and music. Hungarian director János Szász, who brought us last season’s compelling Mother Courage, stages one of the twentieth century’s greatest theatrical masterpieces.

SYNOPSIS

Peter Weiss’s Tony Award-winning play pits two of the world’s monstrous intellects against each other, asking contemporary questions about the aesthetics of resistance.

From 1801 until his death the infamous Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the asylum at Charenton. There he continued to write and stage plays, using his fellow inmates as actors. Sade’s scandalous productions provided a delicious outing for the beau monde of French society.

In 1964, playwright Peter Weiss invented a new piece for Sade’s lunatic troupe to perform. They are to present “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat,” though perhaps Monsieur Coulmier, head of the asylum, will not appreciate the Marquis’s vicious social commentary. After all, they are only fifteen years distant from the bloodiest days of the French revolution, and Napoleon’s new empire is still making many of the same mistakes as the old.

When in 1793, Marat called for the end of monarchies, a young nun, Charlotte Corday, came from the provinces to kill him. His policies called for hundreds more to go to the guillotines, and Corday moved to stop him. Sade dramatizes the stabbing of Marat in his bath with a cast of narcoleptics, paranoiacs, and schizophrenics. The libertine Marquis will pay homage to the great revolutionary and try to convert him to his own libertarian point of view . . . though a riot may ensue.

In repertory with Stone Cold Dead Serious.