Set in the French Insane Asylum of Charenton on July 13th, 1808, 15 years to the day that Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean Paul Marat: 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 aka Marat/Sade was written by Peter Weiss and premiered in 1963. The Marquis (who coined the word “sadism”) is among the inhabitants of the asylum, and has decided to stage a reenactment of the famous, watershed event using the other patients as actors and musicians. Marat (a doctor, scientist and politician) was a vociferous social critic, during the French Revolution. Though he was supposedly a proponent of the impoverished, he advocated for a caste system and the September Massacres, in which 1200-1400 prisoners were summarily executed, lest they be freed and wreak havoc. Marat and the notorious philosopher, de Sade, debate politics, history and the nature of the human condition. Marat sits in his wooden tub, writing manifestos and pontificating, while soaking to alleviate a painful skin disease.
A mashup of absurdity, history, political rhetoric and menace, Marat/Sade demonstrates a problem that may stretch back further than we know. The privileged class drones on and on, making excuses, while tyranny, slaughter and starvation take hold. The asylum band plays wry, angry, boisterous songs and the inmates recite nursery rhymes and frolic, celebrating the ridiculous and utter lack of change. Like gorging on fine cuisine while a destitute mother begs in the street. The drama of Charlotte Corday’s heroism is recreated for Coulmier, the Hospital Director, and his wife and daughter. The patient playing Charlotte has the zombie-like mien of a junky, barely able to focus. The performers recite the couplets that advance the plot, avid and dutiful, bouncing around or assembling formations neater than a military parade. They seem driven by a nearly animatronic giddiness, flirting with but never quite losing control.
Directed by Bert Pigg, L.I.P. Service’s production is skillfully wrought, with risky choices. There’s contemporary music, such as Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, slides documenting Fascism, Anarchy, protest, conflagration. Pigg ties content to the current unrest tearing our country to pieces. He orchestrates choreography, singing, merriment, invective. He digs in, building the terrifying milieu of insanity, rage, torture, playfulness, violence, endless political debate. You wouldn’t think such a chaotic melange would coalesce so gracefully, but Pigg carries it off, and the experience is stunning.
Many thanks to L.I.P. Service for permitting me to see Marat/Sade on closing weekend.
L.I.P. Service presented Marat/Sade at Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts, 11888 Marsh Lane, Suite 600, Dallas, TX 75234. 972-484-7900. www.lipserviceproductions.info