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 - Softcover

Peter Weiss

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0871295075 ISBN 13: 9780871295071

Publisher: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1964

Synopsis

This extraordinary play, which swept Europe before coming to America, is based on two historical truths: the infamous Marquis de Sade was confined in the lunatic asylum of Charenton, where he staged plays; and the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed in a bathtub by Charlotte Corday at the height of the Terror during the French Revolution. But this play-within-a-play is not historical drama. Its thought is as modern as today's police states and The Bomb; its theatrical impact has everywhere been called a major innovation. It is total theatre: philosophically problematic, visually terrifying. It engages the eye, the ear, and the mind with every imaginable dramatic device, technique, and stage picture, even including song and dance. All the forces and elements possible to the stage are fused in one overwhelming experience. This is theatre such as has rarely been seen before. The play is basically concerned with the problem of revolution. Are the same things true for the masses and for their leaders? And where, in modern times, lie the borderlines of sanity?

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"A truly remarkable play that is just as important for modern audiences as it was when it was first performed. A true milestone in modern theatrics. I will be glad to have my students read this great translation and adaptation." -- Daniel Inouye, Ouachita Baptist University

Review:

"My own admiration for, and pleasure in, Marat/Sade is virtually unqualified. Considered as a text alone, it is both sound and exciting. Weiss has supplied a complex and highly literate text which demands to be responded to. Theatricality and insanity--the two most potent subjects of the contemporary theater--are brilliantly fused." --Susan Sontag

About this edition

• Publisher: The Dramatic Publishing Company
• Publication date: 1964
• ISBN 10: 0871295075
• ISBN 13: 9780871295071
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 117