Mental masturbation
When Martin Roe's production of Marat/Sade begins, it is like looking at one of William Hogarth's prints: thirty-six lunatics, itching, spitting, and rocking, leer out at you from the stage. You watch embarrassed as one of them masturbates in the corner, you get distracted by a man in a straight jacket who tries to head-butt a nurse while jumping up and down, and then the mad man with the grimace will wave and stare at you to say, it seems, that you are part of the play as well.
This is an impressive beginning to a production that is particularly challenging. It calls for actors who must play lunatics who must play amateur actors, a task as difficult as getting good musicians to consistently play off key. The whole cast must be on stage for the entire duration of the play (including the intermission) without unjustifiably lapsing into farce. It is pleasing to see that these inherent challenges never appear to be problems.
Like many of the other plays that Peter Weiss wrote, the circumstances surrounding Marat/Sade are based on fact. The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was a French aristocrat who became infamous for his violent pornographic writings, and he is remembered not only because of the word Sadism, but also because of the existing ban on his works in France. Weiss' play describes how the ageing Sade (played by an intense Peter Harness) directs and presents his own production in Charenton, an insane asylum just outside of Paris where he was imprisoned at the end of his life. Sade's play is about the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), a radical during the French revolution, and he uses the platform to present a debate between Marat and himself as representatives of opposing philosophies.
Marat is the advocate of Marxist ideals, but we are shown that he has desires that contradict his reasons for insurrection. He wants equality and peace, but he is willing to take power and murder for it. Sade, on the other hand, realises that Marat's convictions hide his base motives, which everyone inevitably has as creatures created by nature; 'there is no such thing as ideals', he says, 'there is only the body'. Ironically, Sade is unable to live up to his own amoral beliefs when presented with the chance to kill, offering a hope that amorality may be just as flawed as idealism.
Inevitably, the contradictions will make you laugh as well. Corday, the assassin in Sade's production is played by a melancholy somnambulist whose attempts to portray a bloodthirsty killer are thwarted by periods of sleep. Her lover is performed by an erotomaniac whose unsubtle advances prevent him from fulfilling his Platonic role.
Marat/Sade is brainy and bawdy. Even if you don't want to see a classic critique of revolution, even if you aren't fascinated by a clever theatrical idea, you'll be entertained by the absurdity of watching lunatics try to put on a play. While Weiss' Marxist philosophy may be out of fashion, this production proves that his work shouldn't be.
dt
4th Nov 1999