PL AYBILL marat/sade
marat/sade
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
Peter Weiss Translated by GEOFFREY SKELTON VERSE ADAPTATION BY ADRIAN MITCHELL }{
approximate running time: 2 hours 25 minutes. there will be one 20 min intermission
ARTIST NOTE: CAROLINE GILLIS Walking into the cage for Marat/Sade rehearsals I am struck by the immediate effect that being trapped behind bars has on your psyche even if this is just a performance. The fence seems to incite feelings of anarchy and rebellion. You want to shake it. You want to push against it. You want to shout through it. It’s a thrilling initiation into one of my first Soulpepper productions. I’m essentially part of the chorus in the show and in an ensemble piece every action you take works together with the others to make up the whole. This is an interesting parallel with the concept of revolution. The individual agenda must often be let go for the sake of the greater good.
I’m also doing a lot of work with flashlights, and it’s been great fun running around casting shadows and light. In one of his songs Billy Bragg said “The revolution is just a T-shirt away.” A red toque helped me to find a way into my revolutionary choral character. Every revolution has its leaders and its followers. When you’re overthrowing the government someone needs to hold the flashlight. Enjoy the show. Peace.
When Mike Ross asked me to play the snare drum in one of the numbers I was apprehensive as a non-musician, but excited by the idea of being part of the “band.” I tap out the downbeat with one drumstick. (I still haven’t mastered singing at the same time, but maybe tonight!)
p roduc t ion s p on sor
Caroline Gillis , Inmate in Marat/Sade
CREATIVE TEAM
MARAT/SADE
CA ST
Derek Boyes Guard
Caroline Gillis Inmate
Diego Matamoros Marquis de Sade
Frank Cox-O’Connell Jaques Roux
Hailey Gillis Kokol
Oyin Oladejo Inmate
Mikaela Davies Rossignol
Gordon Hecht Inmate
Colin Palangio Cucurucu
Oliver Dennis Herald
Stuart Hughes Jean-Paul Marat
Gregory Prest Duperret
Deborah Drakeford Simonne Evrard
C. David Johnson Coulmier
Liisa Repo-Martell Inmate
Peter Fernandes Cucurucu too
Richard Lam Piano Man
Brendan Wall Inmate
Katherine Gauthier Charlotte Corday
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster Polpoch
William Webster Inmate
Albert Schultz Director
Jason Browning Sound Coordinator
Robert Harding Production Stage Manager
Lorenzo Savoini Set Designer
Nic Vincent Assistant Lighting Designer
Laurie Merredew Assistant Stage Manager
Anahita Dehbonehie Costume Designer
Monica Dottor Movement Coach
Alice Barnett Apprentice Stage Manager
Kevin Lamotte Lighting Designer
Kelly McEvenue Alexander Coach
Mike Ross Music Director & Composer
Mike Mandell Mind Consultant
Produc tion
SOULPEPPER PRODUC TION
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull Head of Hair & Makeup
Barbara Nowakowski First Hand
Greg Chambers Props Builder
Marlee Bygate Geoff Hughes Cutters
Natalie Swiercz Dresser
Tracey Taylor Props Handling
Will Sutton Carpenter
Paul Boddum Scenic Painter
Kiyomi Hidaka Sewer
s p e c i a l t h a n k s: L au r a C on dl l n , t h e s h aw f e s t i va l
Produced by Special Arrangement with Dramatic Publishing, Woodstock, Illinois. cover illustration: the heads of state.
BACKGROUND NOTES
My plays do not have lead roles. The lead roles are played by history and ideas.
M
arat/Sade is a child of the ‘60s. First performed in Berlin, Peter Brook directed a legendary production in London in 1965, which transferred to New York, and won four Tony Awards. Reviews called it “comprehensively perverse”, “warped”, “shocking” and “disturbing” but the play magnetized the fringe and alternative theatre movements, inspiring a new British radicalism. There are historical characters here: French Revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat and his assassin Charlotte Corday, but the Charenton Asylum was real too. Coulimier was the director of the asylum in the early 1800s, and the Marquis de Sade was a “guest”. Coulimier believed in the benefits of art and personal expression for inmates, and de Sade did direct performances there. Weiss imagines that the authorities expect a nice patriotic display about the glorious révolution but de Sade and his actors give them revolutionary anarchy instead.
Marat/Sade requires bravery, commitment, and complete abandon from its artists. Our company, under the direction of Albert Schultz, and with an exciting new score by Mike Ross, brings the trust, artistry and daring to create a Marat/ Sade for our time. Does a revolution come from changing society or from changing yourself? Investigate. Identify. Engage.
Playwright Biography Born in 1916 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Peter Weiss considered himself a Berliner and a German but his country did not. In the ‘30s his family escaped Nazi persecution, settling in Sweden, where he lived until his death. He worked as a painter, professor, journalist and film-maker before devoting himself full time to writing in 1960. He is most well-known for: Marat/ Sade, The Investigation – a documentary play about the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials – and The Aesthetics of Resistance, an epic novel about European Nazi resistance. He died in 1982.
It’s a potent stew influenced by Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Kafka’s sense of paranoia, Henry Miller’s jaunty eroticism, and especially Brecht’s theories. Weiss loved the precision of Brechtian language, its political frankness, the way Brecht used music and alienation. But this is not only a theatre of reason. Weiss challenges audiences to think and feel, to grapple with ideas and respond emotionally. Tidbits & Background Notes by 2015 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing
THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
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Soulpepper is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
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