Word: marat
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...LOEB PRODUCTION of Marat/Sade brings out most of the play's ambiguities. As Marat, Thomas Myers carefully outlines the transition from the asylum's paranoid to its demagogue, calling from his tub to the mobs of Paris. His is not an easy role: it is difficult to play a strong character whose body is so weak, and few Marats really compete with their counterpart Sade. As Sade, George Miller is the clear star of the Loeb show, presenting his cynical vision of humanity with great stage presence...
...contrast between the two men can only develop as the show moves on, as Marat emerges as more than simply another lunatic in the inmates' production. But the tension between the two--between the man who sees violence as the solution to inequality and the man who considers it the outcome of an essential bestiality--is basic to Weiss's script, and the Loeb production is fortunate in having two outstanding actors in the roles...
...almost a Shakespearean jester, providing a sarcastic, witty window into the inmates' world. Prince is perfect in the role, pointing out the foibles of first, the inmates, then the director, never clearly on one side or the other. The four alcoholics who provide a musical Greek chorus to Marat's saga are also good in the not-quite-organized fashion of the insane. Their songs (including "Poor Old Marat" and others that Judy Collins has made famous outside the theater) and pantomimes keep the show from dragging, as they comment on the play's action, the success of the revolution...
...lead women in the play--Charlotte Corday (Sarah Jane Norris), the upperclass young woman who murders Marat in his bath, and Simone (Robin Leidner), who keeps him alive until Corday's final blow--are both perhaps slightly too intense at the beginning to permit their characters to develop. The trick in Weiss's Marat/Sade is that the players must grow in the course of the play, gradually changing from lunatics to historical figures, blending one element into the other. Norris is a brilliant Corday at first, but because she begins her part with too much tension, she has nowhere...
...UNIQUE FEATURES of Marat/Sade is the constant presence of lunatics, not directly involved in the reenactment of Marat's death. They remain on stage, becoming the illustration of all that Marat and Sade discuss--they are the Parisian poor, rightfully indignant against injustice in Marat's eyes, depraved in Sade's. The asylum guards are there, too, to underline the absurdity of the statement by the asylum director (Stephen Toope) that everything has changed, that Napoleon has brought demands for liberty, equality and brotherhood to fruition...