Crazy for A Revolution

The production, which opens tonight and runs through November 7 at the Loeb Experimental Theater, tells the story of that infamous character for whom the term “sadism” was coined, the Marquis de Sade, and his internment at the Charenton Asylum shortly after the French Revolution. A play within a play, the show aims to combine its two settings—revolutionary Paris and an asylum fifteen years later—with an emphasis on the similarities between the seemingly disparate conditions.
The story is partially based on true events. In the early 19th century, Sade was indeed imprisoned in Charenton, where he staged performances using other inmates as actors. The play within “Marat/Sade” focuses on just one of these stagings: Charlotte Corday’s murder of Jean-Paul Marat at the height of the French Revolution’s political terror.
Originally in German, Weiss’ play saw its first English production in 1964, when it was taken up by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the direction of Peter Brook. According to director James M. Leaf ’09-’10, this production had served as a commentary on the Cold War; Marat was used as an allegory for East Berlin, Sade as an allegory for the West. This particular interpretation, which pitted one titular character against the other, possesses little contemporary relevance in Leaf’s play, which lays its emphasis more on the relationship and similarities between the two characters, rather than on their opposition.