Marat - Sade

Introduction

The appearance of "Marat-Sade" in 1964 made the world experience and appreciate its creator, Peter Weiss. Starting from the internment of Sade at Charenton (where he organized the festivities), Peter Weiss imagined the evening entertainment and produced a play about the Revolution and the elimination of Marat-Sade. It is above all an abyss into the theater that the actors play internees who portray the characters of the play in front of 1809 spectators who were "slumming" for evenings of Charenton. Peter Weiss is playing historical figures to internees to different pathologies such as, paranoia, lethargy, and chronic antisocial recovering etc. Weiss through his cunning makes Sade the orchestrator of the appearance and features a row of issuance detached from traditional rules of representation. His text, while being exceedingly thorough and versified addresses all the registers of the game: the tragic, comic, grotesque, singing, and recitative. Of course, not everything goes as expected; the scenes can deteriorate and get inflammatory remarks probably by the determination of inflammatory Sade. This exposure to both serious and entertaining dialogues between Sade and Marat allows Weiss to wonder about space and power of the revolution (Foley, 20-45).

It dissects the Sadian themes of individual freedom and expression of creativity and writing. It explores the powers of Marat systems erected in the name of the noble ideas of freedom of individuals. The original title of Marat-Sade was “The Persecution, and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat” as represented by the drama group of the hospital of Charenton under the direction of Monsieur de Sade. What the title does not say, and you will also see is the presence in this public representation of the time invited by Coulmier, who was the director of the place. His active presence since the latter continued to intervene to put the representation on the rails of propriety and conformity.

Discussion

Marat-Sade is a drama in two parts with a rarely used full 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. Set in the communal bath hall of the Charenton asylum in France and a period of prosperity and global conquest. The premise is that of a play written about Marat and set in 1793, four years into the French Revolution by Marquis de Sade who also directs the play. He argues about revolution with Marat while the inmate-actors writhe and scream hysterically on stage or sprawl in apathetic poses (Thomas, 218-219). As a representative of the Theatre of Cruelty movement promulgated by Antonin Astaud, the play features blaring music, spattering blood, and a wide range of acts of violence, including whipping. Marat defends revolutionary actions at all costs, as the Coulmier family protest such sentiments with the goal of keeping the inmates calm. As Marat espouses patriotism and revolt, de Sade reacts with scorn and charges that the revolution resulted only in a “withering of the individual man / and a slow merging into uniformity” (Gassner, ...