By Katie Schleiss
"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" is an abnormally long title for a play. Thankfully, shortened to "Marat/Sade," this play offers a shortened, although emotionally loaded, account of the differing ideologies and attitudes surrounding the French Revolution.
A lofty subject usually reserved for history classrooms and dedicated scholars, "Marat/Sade" makes this historical event both interesting and applicable to modern society.
The French Revolution was characterized by violent turmoil and vast bloodshed. While political opponents in America don't usually resort to murder and guillotines as a way of recruiting citizens, the debate between individualism and socialism rings loudly today.
"Marat/Sade" is a bloody depiction of both political and human struggle and asks whether suffering and revolution comes from changing society or changing one's own beliefs.
"Marat/Sade" brought playwright Peter Weiss widespread international attention and the legendary director Peter Brook staged a famous production in New York City the following year after the play premiered.
"The main premise of this play is that people always have to ask questions about their government and ask about what constitutes good leadership and when change in government is needed," Colin Murray, theater professor and director, said.
During this time period both America and France were going through revolutions. The play is set in the historical Charenton Asylum and the actors are the inmates. Nurses and supervisors occasionally step in to restore order among the ensuing chaos.
When Murray pitched this show to the faculty last year, the U.S. presidential campaign was still going on.
"There were many questions floating around about what a good leader is like and this question was on my mind because the same question is asked in this play," Murray said. "I don't consider the play to be a political statement in favor of an political opinion."
The play takes place in 1808, but the setting of the play within the play is in 1793, during the throes of the French Revolution. Best classified as a play within another play, the inmates and Sade depict that assassination of Marat for an audience of French aristocrats.
Marquis de Sade is the playwright of the play within the play and he historically wrote and staged plays from an insane asylum in which he was a resident for many years. He even wrote John Marat's eulogy.
Two extremely different historical persons, Jean-Paul Marat and Marquis de Sade, are studied in this play.
One is a brutal hero of the French Revolution, and the other famously had the concept of sadism named after him. Marat/Sade is still performed, although less regularly, and is considered a classic.
Sade was a French aristocrat whose novels were philosophical and sadomasochistic, exploring rape, bestiality and necrophilia. He supported extreme freedom unrestrained by morality, religion or law with the aim of personal pleasure. He was incarcerated in various prisons and an insane asylum.
Sade directed performances in this asylum with other inmates and, as a main character in the play, conducts many philosophical dialogues with Marat. He observes the performance with sadistic amusement, remaining detached and simply standing by as an observer and advocate of his own individualist beliefs.
Marat was known as a radical journalist and politician from the French Revolution. Constant persecution and uncanny prophetic powers made him the unofficial link between the French citizenry and the radical Jacobin group that came to power preceding the French Revolution.
Charlotte Corday murdered Marat in his bathtub. This bathtub has significance, because his skin disease was worsening and the pain was only alleviated in a medicinal bath.
The character portrayed within the inner play was historically correct and are played by the patients of the asylum. Historians knew that Sade staged plays from inside the asylum and performed them for the French public, but no scripts from these plays have survived.
The play within the play is what the playwright Peter Weiss imagined Sade could have written. The play within the play is Marat's assassination by Charlotte Corday, but the plot still remains chaotic with enthusiastic song and dance numbers and convincing and powerful acting from the leads.
"The politics of the author is way in left field, but the play is more about ideas and questions rather than explaining the author's political leanings," Murray said. "The questions asked are what are important so the audience can make their own choices."
Marque de Sade was more of an anarchist and his views are more in line that people should lead themselves. Marat subscribed to more Marxist ideals with state run entities, although his idea of what the state is slightly different than Marxist thought.
"It's not dissimilar to the debate between republicanism and federalism, where modern debates are similar but less melodramatic than in this play," Murray said.
Politics aside, the performance of actors senior Heather Petersen and junior Ariel Puls were especially memorable. Playing Jean-Paul Marat and Charlotte Corday, respectively, they managed to incorporate their character's mental illness and hypersomnia into the play in a way that emphasized and added to the theatrical tension.
