Marat/Sade: Cage Match

The stony-faced fellow standing at the auditorium's entrance pays little attention to the inquiries of the crowd of ticket-holders in the lobby asking when the house will open so they can take their seats.  No, he's not a rude usher.  He's really an actor playing an asylum attendant in The Classical Theatre of Harlem's thrillingly disturbing environmental production of Peter Weiss' 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, better known by the abbreviation Marat/Sade.

When an unseen person on the other side instructs him to let us in, we're told to quickly take any seat available.  Set designer Troy Hourie has filled the space with a steel cage, which is filled with more than thirty members of director Christopher McElroen's excellent acting ensemble, most of whom play mentally disturbed inmates.  Some are naked as we enter, being subjected to the forceful orders of attendants instructing all to put on their clothes and silently take their places.  One poor fellow, seeming unaware of anything, stands limply hanging from the pole he is chained to, eyes upward and a secretions dripping down from his mouth and nose.  He spends the entire intermissionless hour and forty-five minutes that way.  The audience sits in two rows of folding chairs that encircle the cage.  Behind them on two sides are auxiliary cages used to keep inmates who are acting up or not needed presently.

Marat/Sade is not your typical Tony-winner for Best Play.  Its Broadway premiere, a transfer of director Peter Brooks' 1964 West End production, was both revered and ridiculed, exhilarating those who shouted its praises while sickening others who walked out of performances.  (The joke of the day was, "Have you seen Marat/Sade?"  "No, but I read the title.")

The piece is primarily a play within a play, being presented at the Asylum of Charenton in France; an institution known for its humanitarian treatment of inmates under director Abbe de Coulmier (Ron Simons).  It is 1808 and Coulmier, believing in theatre as therapy, has arranged for his most infamous inmate, The Marquis de Sade (T. Ryder Smith), to write an direct a play performed by his patients in patriotic salute to the revolution that has placed Napoleon at the head of the government.  De Sade's drama tells how aristocrat Charlotte Corday (Dana Watkins) from a less-violent revolutionary faction, came to murder journalist Jean-Paul Marat (Nathan Hinton), a key figure in The Reign of Terror who spent most of his time soaking in a bathtub because of a skin condition.  There are songs composed by Richard Peaslee, with lyrics by Adrian Mitchell, who supplies the English translation to Weiss' original German.

But the play isn't exactly the thing here, as the patients are prone to ad-libbing outbursts about their own need to revolt; their violent rebellions calmly observed by de Sade.  Fight choreographer Denise A. Hurd has some convincing moments, while Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj's choreography features stylized sexual acts.  With actors only inches away from the front row audience members, and not much further away from the rest, you'll no doubt find yourself an up-close witness to many violent acts and, during calmer moments, be subjected to the curious stares of inmates who may look you directly in the eye or right through you.

Smith is very effective in the play's centerpiece moment, which involves whipping, bloodshed, masturbation, urine and excrement.  (All of it fake, of course.)

Marat/Sade is a rather ambiguous drama, perhaps most effective in its mere depiction of lust and cruelty.  The Classical Theatre of Harlem's production is an intriguing piece of human spectacle.

Photos by Michael Messer:  Top:  Nathan Hinton, Dana Watkins and Daniel Talbott

Center:  T. Ryder Smith (far left), Nathan Hinton (far right) and Company

Bottom:  Nathan Hinton and Jonathan Payne

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