Марат/Сад: Шизофрения мен революцияның сахнасы

Peter Weiss's stage play1964 play by 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 (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade), usually shortened to Marat/Sade (ma.ʁa. sad), is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss. The work was first published in German. Incorporating dramatic elements characteristic of both Antonin Artaud and Bertolt Brecht, it is a depiction of class struggle and human suffering that asks whether true revolution comes from changing society or changing oneself.

Set in the historical Charenton Asylum, Marat/Sade is almost entirely a "play within a play". The main story takes place on 13 July 1808; the play directed by the Marquis de Sade within the story takes place 15 years earlier, during the French Revolution, culminating in the assassination (13 July 1793) of Jean Paul Marat, then quickly brings the audience up to date (1808). The actors are the inmates of the asylum; the nurses and supervisors occasionally step in to restore order. The bourgeois director of the hospital, Coulmier, supervises the performance, accompanied by his wife and daughter. He is a supporter of the post revolutionary government led by Napoleon, in place at the time of the production, and believes the play he has organised to be an endorsement of his patriotic views. His patients, however, have other ideas, and they make a habit of speaking lines he had attempted to suppress, or deviating entirely into personal opinion. They, as people who came out of the revolution no better than they went in, are not entirely pleased with the course of events as they occurred. The Marquis de Sade, the man after whom sadism is named, did indeed direct performances in Charenton with other inmates there, encouraged by Coulmier. De Sade is a main character in the play, conducting many philosophical dialogues with Marat and observing the proceedings with sardonic amusement. He remains detached and cares little for practical politics and the inmates' talk of right and justice; he simply stands by as an observer and an advocate of his own nihilistic and individualist beliefs.

In 1964 the play was translated by Geoffrey Skelton with lyric adaptation by Adrian Mitchell and staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Peter Brook directed a cast that included Ian Richardson as the herald, Clive Revill as Marat, Patrick Magee as de Sade and Glenda Jackson as Charlotte Corday. After two previews, the Broadway production opened on 27 December 1965 at the Martin Beck Theatre and ran for 145 performances. Richardson took over the role of Marat, while Magee and Jackson reprised the roles they had originated in London. The play won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Best Director. Additional awards went to Magee for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and Gunilla Palmstierna Weiss for her Costume Design. Jackson lost the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play to Zoe Caldwell. It also won the 1966 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. In Australia, the play was directed by Edgar Metcalfe in 1966 at the Playhouse Theatre in Perth. It played for six weeks. The cast included Alan Lander as Marat and Eileen Colocott as Charlotte Corday. Other cast members included Peter Collingwood as the Marquis de Sade, James Beattie, Rosemary Barr, Peter Morris, Chris Johnson, Ken Gregory and Roland Rocchiccioli. The set was designed by Ted Dombowski.

The first production, following the opening on Broadway in 1965, was presented in the summer of 1966 at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. It was the first play in a four play season for Missouri Reperatory Theatre. The production was directed by Dr. Patricia McIlrath, and playing the lead, Marat was Joeseph Brockett. In 1967, Clayton Garrison's production for Irvine Repertory Theatre featured actors Bob Gunton and Robert Cohen along with Oakley Hall III. Cohen later edited the 1998 publication of the play. In October 1969 the Virginia Museum Theater (VMT) opened its season with the play directed by Keith Fowler, the new artistic director of the company. He established the first LORT company in Richmond and led VMTRep (as it became known) to a period of national and international acclaim. Marat/Sade was produced with the first racially integrated cast in VMT's history, and this generated controversy: the two major Richmond newspapers published "rave reviews" of the show, and the editor of the afternoon paper, the News Leader, attacked the production fiercely for evincing "latitudinarianism." In 2006 The Blue House Theater Company presented Marat/Sade at the Sacred Fools theater in Los Angeles. The production was directed by Patrick J. Adams with an original score by Joshua Charney. It won an LA Weekly Theater Award for production of the year. An all male production of the play was presented in 2007 at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in New York, under the direction of Christopher McElroen. In 2011 the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a revival of the play as part of the company's 50th anniversary celebrations. The revival was directed by Anthony Neilson and ran from 14 October to 11 November. American composer Mary McCarty Snow (1928–2012) composed music for a Texas Tech University production of Marat/Sade. In 2012, the play was staged at Brava Theatre in San Francisco, produced by Marc Huestis and directed by Russell Blackwood with his company Thrillpeddlers.

The 1967 film adaptation featured many of the original players from the American production. The long version of the play's title is shown in the film's opening credits, although this was frequently shortened to Marat/Sade in publicity materials. The screenplay was written by Adrian Mitchell and directed by Peter Brook. The cast included Richardson, Magee, Jackson, Jones, and Clifford Rose.