Marat/Sade is a play-within-a-play, written by Peter Weiss in the 1960s, that pits two legendary French revolutionary iconsJean-Paul Marat and the Marquess de Sadeagainst each other in a conflict of wits to determine what is better for their Fatherland and fellow citizens. Marat is a vocal critic of the aristocracy, de Sade a critic of the Revolution.
Did we observe that their fellow citizens are a radical of patients in an asylum?
Weiss's script tells the level of Marat's murder by Charlotte Corday from the position of de Sade, who has written a staged version of Marat's death to be performed by his fellow inmates at the Charenton Asylum in France (where de Sade was incarcerated for 13 years), in face of the asylum's director, Courmier, and an interview of French aristocrats. Soup Can's production, under the helm of artistic director Sarah Thorpe, adds an additional layer by switching the position from Charenton to McGill Universitys Psychiatry Department in 1957, when Donald Ewan Cameron was performing shock therapy and other torturous experiments on patients who had only mild psychological complaints. Unfortunately, while there is a program, audience members aren't provided with an Encyclopaedia of Canadian Cold War History. And at the chance of sounding completely dimwitted, we could get used one.
Thematically speaking, the equivalence between the French Revolution and Dr. Cameron's experiments draws some interesting connectionswhile the mass of France were tearing down their hierarchical systems of form and authorities to make a new society from scratch, Cameron was tearing down minds to rebuild people. From de Sade's stance (which was normally a seat off to the side to better see the unfolding action), Marat would have been in back of Cameron's soulless use of fury to attain a greater end that would, apparently, improve the world. His play instead acts as a creature to incite fury inside his prisoner pals to the point (spoiler alert) that when the last blow falls upon Marat, the inmates are likewise compelled to rise against their medical manipulators.
In theory, the parallels between these two points in time are clear. But, in practice, certain stylistic choices make them hazy. If the play-within-a-play is set at McGill instead of Charenton, why are the nurses wearing Charenton scrubs? Why is Courmier overseeing the product instead of Cameron himself? How is de Sade orchestrating the inmates' protest in the 1950s when he died in 1814? Or is it another of Cameron's victims who's impersonating the 18th-century writer?
There are enough of really enjoyable aspects to this show, however. The set of blood-stained white tile has a nice House on Haunted Hill effect, and by nice we mean nightmarish. Performances by Kat Letwin as The Hail and Heather Marie Annis (in a surprising departure from her Morro and Jasp clown duo)as Charlotte Corday are both delightfully unhinged, mad yet sympathetic. Annis especially does an impressive job taking blank stares, twitchy fingers, and distracted stutters and using them to depict the patient's painful history, which is never explained but felt through and through. A choir of singers beautifully narrates the process along with a hot band (also dressed in sterile whites, tousled hair, and baggy eyes), while the entire ensemble completes the show by never losing their lunacy while the action draws the audience's attention elsewhere.
Marat/Sade is a powerful play with the possible to cause sleepless nights. While aesthetically, Soup Can's world had our fists clenched in suspense, the mixed direction had our brains wracked by confusion.
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