What: Marat Sade by Peter Weiss, by Eclipse Theatre
Where:
Theatreworks 14A Acland St., St. Kilda
When:
December 18 to 21, 2002 at 7.30pm
Reviewer:
Kate Herbert
Marat/Sade,
written by German playwright, Peter Weiss, is set in the bath hall of the
French asylum of Charenton in 1808, sixteen years after the French Revolution. Director,
Miranda Rose, bit off a fair chunk in attempting this play. The production
cannot meet the quality of the script.
The full
title of the play is "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."
The
incarcerated Marquis de Sade directs his own play about the death of Jean-Paul
Marat, the French revolutionary murdered in 1793 in his bath by fellow revolutionary,
Charlotte Corday.
The shocking
murder is told in a play within a play, through the voices of the inmates of
the asylum under de Sade's cool direction.
Weiss's play is a political allegory using the
French Revolution as a parallel for the modern world. The violence
of the Revolution, the poverty of the masses and opulence of the aristocracy
are reflected in the powerlessness of the inmates as they perform for the elite
of French society in 1808.
As the time for the murder nears, the lunatics
lose control and the audience, both on and off-stage, are threatened with
violence.
This
production appears to use the translation by Geoffrey Skelton with verse
adaptation by Adrian Mitchell and music by Richard Peaslee.
Peter Brook originally
directed this version in 1964 for the Royal Shakespeare Company. (RSC) It was
the definitive stage form of Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty in both
writing and performance.
There are
several competent performances in Eclipse's production. As de Sade, Adrian
D'Aprano has an imposing presence and an understanding of the character. As the
somnambulist, Charlotte, Ben Sutton is compelling while James Adler holds our
attention as Marat with his stillness.
Swapping the
genders of characters is a comic choice that undermines the potency.
Overall, the
show misses the poignancy and tragedy. It portrays the mentally ill with face
pulling and twitching. There is no subtlety nor is there any sensitivity to the
issues inherent in Weiss's complex play.
The songs
are probably the most successful part of the show.
The audience
should feel at risk emotionally and physically. The play should balance the
sardonic with the socially significant, blend the poetic and the crass, the
musical and the spoken. Eclipse fails to do this.
By Kate
Herbert
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