Peter Weiss Marat/Sade
Concept Statement
Peter Weiss' s The Persecution and Assassination of
Jean Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton under
the Direction of the Marquis de Sade is that kind of strange mix of philosophy,
politics, sex, violence and pure shtick that makes for simply good theatre.
Radical politics and pop tunes, Büchner meets Bye Bye Birdie!
Research into the asylums of the period reveals that the progressive mental
health practitioners of the time had hit upon water treatment as the therapy
of choice for the enlightened sane; as if the actual cleansing of the body
could effect the metaphoric purification of the mind. Never mind that, from
a contemporary perspective, the therapy looks more like torture than treatment.
Weiss placed the action of the play in the bathhouse precisely for this reason
and the result is theatre that would make Artaud jealous.
The central image is the bathhouse itself, cavernous, antiseptic, familiar
and threatening. Seen from the perspective of the inmates, the incongruous
great culverts promise access to the primal mysteries of the unconscious and
at the same time presage a pending catastrophe of the scope of the great flood.
Guarded by Gargoyles the hard white tile surfaces of the space offer the inmates
all the comfort and the same inevitability as a tomb.
In the end, with the alarm sounding, the machines of healing in shambles and
an ominous red light pulsing from the depths of the sewers, we the audience,
can only stare in awe and envy at the inmates bold rebellion against the forces
of life, fate and death itself.