My husband and I went to see an interesting play Saturday: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Claude Marat by the Marquis De Sade. See if you can follow this: It was supposed to be De Sade's play, that de Sade wrote to be acted out by the inmates of the asylum in which he was committed in the 18th century. But really, the play was written by a 20th century playwright; he wrote it as if it was de Sade writing it. To make matters more confusing, the play we were watching was supposed to be acted out by modern inmates in a modern asylum, but they were pretending to be the 18th century inmates. So it was a play within a play within a play.
So the whole time, I thought it was supposed to be de Sade and Marat and Charlotte Corday (Marat's murderer) actually as inmates in the asylum....but really they were just inmates pretending to be those characters. Actually, they were inmates pretending to be those inmates pretending to be those characters.
It was so weird...it was in a smaller theater where you sit very close to the stage, the seats wrapping around the stage. The whole thing was set up as if you were in a real insane asylum. As we waited in line to enter the theater, a girl walked around yelling at everyone to turn their cell phones off b/c the inmates will go nutso if they ring. Cute.
Then they only let us in one at a time. After they beckoned me, I walked up to the door, away a bit from the rest of the line, and had to wait for the door opener to get some queue that it was okay to enter...then they open the door, say you can go in, and close it behind you (the door having these loud bam! and clicking noises as if really asylum doors). Next you wait in a waiting room for a sec, and another guy sprinkles holy water or something on the wall and lets you in. Crazy!
The theater was almost full when I walked in, so I just waited for my husband by the door. All of the "inmates" were mostly naked (they had flesh colored undies on) and were lined up, stoic and expressionless, against the back walls of the theater, behind the seats.
So my husband and I ended up in the front row (I think everyone else was too chicken to take those seats, so we didn't have much of a choice. Some of the inmates were at our feet half of the time), and when the play started , all of the inmates ran up on stage and starting hastily wrapping themselves in this gauze like stuff, and then the play began.
I could go on and on, but I'll just say the play was really good...and eerie...and interesting. There was a lot of groping and sexuality about it (being it is supposed to be about de Sade, after all).
The guy who played Marat had a fantastic body. OMG. He was half-naked too... just a beautiful physique. He was also a great actor. His voice inflection reminded me of Ralph Fiennes. The guy who played de Sade was an excellent actor, as well, but not as great of a body. He was thin...which I imagine de Sade to be tall and thin. Actually, I've looked it up, and he ended up being quite obese in his older age. I'm not sure how old he was supposed to be in this play. Charlotte Corday was also very good, and and quite attractive and appealing as an actress. Most of the other actors could really look in to doing some Body for Life. :)
When the play was over, the "inmates" stripped down out of their gauze wraps, ran off the stage, and lined up against the wall again, except this time, they were facing the wall with their backs to us. That was even freakier than the beginning. It reminded me of the Blair Witch Project.
And like the end of the BWP when I saw it in the theater, the audience just sat there in the end not knowing what to do. So we all just awkwardly clapped...but the actors stayed in character and never came back to bow or any of that. It just got all quiet, everyone sat there for a couple of seconds, and then we started quietly filing out of there. Cool.
(btw...I wish I would have let my cell phone ring. No one's did. I wonder if they worked it in the play to actually go berserk if one started ringing)
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4 comments:
What an odd play, but perhaps that's appropriate for the historical time, place and characters the play within depicts.
Very odd, but that's why I dug it. Outside the box that is outside of the box, for sure.
Were there any indications of how the patients were affected by their depictions? That is, did playing Sade, Marat, Corday, or any of the other characters of the play within seem to have any effect on them, for good or ill? Alternately, did the roles they portrayed seem related to the particular dysfunction that got them there?
I guess I'm more interested in the characters than in the characters they're portraying . . .
TG- It is hard to say whether or not playing Sade, etc., had any effect on the patients. But yes, some of their particular dysfunctions were revealed. For instance, the patient who played Corday had narcolepsy and fell asleep several times during her act. I assume Corday did not have this, although I have not looked into it. But either Corday had it, or the character playing Corday had it, or it was written into the play that the original patient had it. My interpretation was that the real-time insane asylum patient had narcolepsy, but I am not certain.
And it's been several weeks now. I've seen "HAIR" since then... :)
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