WAVE Productions’ newest play, 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, is a chaotic caper through the French Revolution that can best be described as literally insane. Marat/Sade is a play within a play, in which patients in a mental asylum under the direction of the Marquis de Sade – famed writer, philosopher and sexual libertine for whom “sadism” is named – reenact the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, radical journalist and politician.
Director Fergus Inder and Producer Alex Wolfe, both Communication sophomores studying theatre, discuss the upcoming production, which will premiere on Nov. 7 at 10 p.m. at the McCormick Auditorium in Norris University Center.
On describing Marat/Sade to the uninitiated:
Fergus Inder: I’m actually incredibly excited for people to come into the show with no former knowledge of it because it’s going to catch them off guard so much, which is really the point. It’s, in terms of the adjective you’ve been throwing around, radical. It tries to destroy audience complacency by throwing them right in the middle of it and really never letting them have a moment of respite. It’s at times overwhelming, it’s certainly insane, it’s kind of nonstop, but at the same time, it’s kind of a play of contrasts and extremes. For every moment that’s loud and crazy and chaotic – a moment of anarchy – there’s also a moment of stillness and darkness.
Alex Wolfe: I think what we’re trying to play up, as Fergus said, is the contrast and the dichotomy. A lot of it is focused on opposites and reconciling that.
On the music of Marat/Sade:
FI: I loved that it was kind of a secret musical. There are four characters that are like clowns – they wear full makeup and they sing these songs that are very lucid and have a lot of commentary on the action of the show as its going on. It’s like you step out for a second and sing a song, and then you’re right back into it again. It’s not a musical because the music doesn’t further the plot, but there’s a lot of singing, which was an idea that fascinated me because I do a lot of musical theater, so I thought it was kind of cool that it was a new approach to seeing music in a show than I’d seen before.
On the show as a social commentary:
FI: As I started thinking about the show a little, it struck me as a show that had a lot of relevancy to this time period and this community. The fact that it’s set in an asylum kind of automatically puts it at a level of tackling, and hopefully in a very respectful way, mental illness, which was something that our community was forced to grapple with a lot last year. It’s really fascinating at points in the show because you realize that the way that we’ve treated the mentally ill hasn’t changed in 200 years. It’s set in 1808. It’s 2013, and the things they’re doing, we still do.
At the same time, for every moment in the show that these people are very normal and very human, and you really sympathize with them and wish that they could be a part of the society that they long to be a part of and have all the rights that they feel like they deserve, there’s another moment where you’re absolutely terrified of them or are laughing at them and are kind of grateful that they’re not a part of our society. It’s definitely not a show that answers all the questions.
Beyond that, I think politically it has a lot of relevancy because it’s talking about the French Revolution and its failures. It kind of deals with a lot of the hope for change that people had going into the revolution and the bitterness they feel when it doesn’t really come to. Obviously, in a smaller way, that’s echoed in our society to a certain extent with the election of Obama in 2008. Not that certain changes haven’t come to fruition, but in terms of the magnitude of hope for change, it just hasn’t really come to. I felt that people would be able to, at least in a smaller way, connect with that political message.
On offending the audience:
AW: In previous productions, there’s always people who walk out during the show or leave during intermission. Honestly, I hope they do. I’m of the opinion that if someone hates something, if someone is that moved to walk out, there’s going to be someone who loves it. If you’re indifferent about something, then who says anyone else feels any stronger about it? We want to provoke feeling.
FI: A moving and memorable theater experience, rather than a story you can sit and be comfortable in and hear a moral and feel better about yourself.
AW: And then leave and go on with your life.
FI: It’s certainly not escapist. It’s absolutely “You’re here, we’re here, let’s talk.”
On working in McCormick Auditorium:
AW: It’s not meant for shows. It’s meant for a speaker or a lecturer, but definitely not a full production, so making this space emanate that atmosphere was something that I’ve been really excited to do. Fergus wanted to paint McCormick white, and we weren’t allowed to do that, so we’ve had to adapt some of our ideas but I think it’s worked out.
FI: On the technical side, Norris kind of crushed some of my dreams, not that I don’t love Norris. I wanted to have all this water on stage, and I wanted to paint the set as the show was being performed and I wanted to splatter paint a human figure. [Norris is] just very protective of their space, which is fine, I get it, I just keep on thinking of the things we could do to the show if we just had a barren warehouse.
I think for a lot of people, McCormick is such a challenging space, but also, it’s just such a typical theater space. It has a performative quality, but we take that for the first couple of minutes and destroy it. We have actors running through the house, climbing on the seats. It’s definitely cool because for the people who have seen shows in that space before, they’re going to expect a certain thing and they’re just not going to get it. We have characters that are seated in the audience for the whole show that get up and interject.
That being said, I don’t love McCormick as a space, but I can’t envision a better show for the space that we were given, and I think the space itself lends some really interesting things to our show in return.
AW: McCormick is just a space that a lot of people don’t want to work in, and we wanted to fight that head-on. The challenge makes it that much better.
On pitching Marat/Sade to WAVE:
FI: The great thing about WAVE is that they really value what show you’re most interested in. Some other boards will take into account what show they would like to have in their season most, which ones might be more commercially successful. We went in and we were like ‘We have these two other options that are great but we really want to do Marat/Sade,’ and they were like ‘Cool.’
AW: I think it was 12 minutes we had to pitch all three of our shows, and we took nine minutes dedicated to Marat/Sade, so it was pretty obvious what our first choice was.
FI: It was very interactive. I had them, like, running around and sleeping and singing – I was trying to simulate the environment of the show. More so than anything else, that’s what’s important.
On working with WAVE:
FI: I can absolutely say I wouldn’t be directing Marat/Sade with any other board. WAVE is very Marat/Sade, and Marat/Sade is very WAVE. If I had said that I’d wanted to do this show to any other board, they might have been like 'Ugh!' but WAVE was like 'Yeah!'
AW: There’s at least one person on WAVE who’ll come by all the time and just start singing the songs and saying the lines. He’s memorized the entire show, I think.
On the best seats in the house:
FI: If you can sit just left of the right aisle [house right, stage left], first couple of rows, that’s going to put you right in the middle of everything.
AW: We’ve been rehearsing in a lot of intimate spaces, like Kresge rooms and other rooms around campus, and it’s been interesting to see it translate to such a larger space, but there’s definitely something extremely disturbing when they’re just in your face.
Final disclaimers:
FI: Come to the show. Be ready. But if you don’t know the show, don’t look it up. Just come. Get ready to get messed with.
AW: [Marat/Sade] is really disturbing and really untraditional, and I think it’s something that people could gain a lot from because it’s not just a show, it’s an experience. It’s an event.