Word: sade
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...years ago driven by theories of theater half that age. One look at the show’s original 1963 title, “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,” should raise a flag: this is not a straightforward piece of writing...
...Performed in the insane asylum, the act’s unfolding is rich and nuanced. The cranky, nervous Marat is played by a paranoiac who at times must be detained because of his episodes; his words are twisted and debated by the cool and assured Marquis de Sade (Olivia J. Jampol ’10), who directs and occasionally intervenes in his own creation...
...times, these moments are more silly than shocking, but when they work, Leaf causes the distress the play wants. Toward the middle of the play, Corday whips Sade under his own request. No real leather is used (Jakim sets her hair to the task), but Jampol’s grimaces and cries express such a mix of pain and pleasure that it is hard to believe that no one is getting hurt. Standing, arms and legs outstretched in the middle of the prison, she is at once physically bound and liberated in her speech...
...across as exactly that—a debate more arcane than compelling. Leaf has said that he wished to compare the two title characters rather than contrast them, as is normally done, but in doing so, he fails to exploit the text’s inherent strength. Marat and Sade are so physically different—one spends most of the play horizontal and infirm while the other fully commands the stage—that considering them as equals flattens the excitement of their encounter...
This play is also known as “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.” We’re not sure what it’s about, but it supposedly involves “a sleepwalker with a knife, a firebrand ex-preacher, four gin-riddled singers, a sexual maniac with a wig, a schizoaffective historical re-enactor, a histrionic man in a bathtub, his mistress, and a Spanish guitar...