Jun
17
I read 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 a little while ago and have been meaning to jot down my thoughts. I have always heard that it is a very powerful play, that audiences react to it viscerally, but it is hard for me to imagine that having just read the play. Perhaps it is a play that must be seen, or perhaps it is just an indication of how we have become desensitized. I did wonder how affective it was as a play, as I cannot imagine comprehending some of the ideas if I was watching it on stage; it was hard enough to keep track of the history and ideology while reading it.
I would think the content better suited for a book, however it would certainly lose what visceral impact on the audience that it has retained. To say that MARAT/SADE is cerebral is an understatement; I found myself a lot of the time trying to track the ideologies of the various characters, which I enjoyed, however it could have been organized better so that they played off each other more in a a way that was more accessible.
This is not to say that all plays should try to make themselves accessible to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps I just need to read it again, which I will. Perhaps I need to improve my knowledge of French Revolutionary history, which I am sure is true. And perhaps to remove some of the complexity would be to degrade it, all I can say is that as a reader, and I am sure as a viewer, I had a hard time getting my head around the whole thing.
I enjoyed the use of the chorus, which reminded me of the old greeks. I enjoyed the diving into straight debate between Sade and Marat, the interplay between the two positions is thought provoking in particular because they are not diametrically opposed, but on two different playing fields. These two different fields are echoed by the play within the play structure, which at times felt contrived. IBy the end of MARAT/SADE, I felt like I came away from listening to a conversation. Nothing was resolved, there was no pointed moral, but instead the contrasting of different perspectives and the thoughts such confrontations provoke.
