Actors go crazy in ‘Marat/Sade’

Mental patients take the stage Friday at the Wells-Metz Theatre. The patients will be performing a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat, with Marquis de Sade as director.

That is the “play within a play” of the performance titled “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 as “Marat/Sade.”  The IU Department of Theatre and Drama will have performances Friday, Saturday and Feb. 9 to 13 at 7:30 p.m. with a matinee on Feb. 13 at 2 p.m.

In “Marat/Sade” actors portray asylum inmates who put on a show, led by Sade, from whom the term sadism is derived. These intertwining plays deal with the distinctions between ideas like war and peace, optimism and pessimism, human nature as good and evil, as well as the question of to what degree can people change.

“The author, Peter Weiss, explores those themes in that, in setting it in an asylum, you have this overall question of ‘What is sanity? What is insanity?’” said Matthew Martin, a junior portraying a patient who believes he is Jean-Paul Marat. “Are people insane and can they be changed and controlled, or are people the subjects of their environment? He takes these huge themes and compresses them into this world where everything is questioned and nothing is resolute.”

One major twist in the production is instead of the original 18th century setting, this show takes place in modern times, in a modern asylum, complete with the patients’ childlike crayon drawings adorning the asylum walls.

“We’re taking a much more irreverent and theatrical approach to the play than has been done in the past,” said Dale McFadden, director and Professor of Acting and Directing. “I’ve never been satisfied with those productions that kept it in the faux period of the 18th century. The issues at work in the play need to be pushed forward.”

Everything from humor to violence to beautiful songs mingle to create what McFadden calls a “clinical cabaret.”

“It’s not just what the play is about but how it’s presented, which the audience I hope will find challenging and involving,” McFadden said.

Sophomore and stage crew member Rachel Livingston said the play sets a “very odd boundary” between the audience and the actors, and she is eager to see what the audience thinks of it.

“I just can’t wait to see how people will react to the uncomfortable silences and see how much they react to the characters,” Livingston said. “The complexity of the story is really interesting.  You never really know who’s going crazy because they’re all insane.”