Marat/Sade

The year is 1808. Due to his indecent writings, the Marquis de Sade has been interned at the mental hospital of Charenton. There he produces his own plays for the amusement of the hospital directors and the nobility. This evening he presents the cold-blooded murder of the French revolutionary Jean Paul Marat, who sits in his bathtub.

The regime of fear rules. The inmates are to be cleansed from sin and fashioned into well-functioning citizens. But who is actually mad?

Marquis de Sade performs himself and directs the play. But the patients have difficulty following his ideas and the mental nurses are struggling to keep them under control – after all, the audience is meant to have a lovely evening. As the drama develops, the patients’ and the leadership’s discontent grows and the drama risks spinning into chaos.

German/Swedish writer Peter Weiss’ world-famous play from 1964 deals with the concepts of revolution, the people, democracy and power. Topics just as central today but seldom treated with this level of drastic clarity.

Jan Klata is one of Poland’s and Europe’s most famous and prize-winning dramatists and directors. He is the driving force behind over thirty productions in various Polish venues as well as in cities such as Graz, Düsseldorf, Bochum and Berlin. He served as artistic director of the National Stary Theatre in Krakow 2013-2017 and received the prestigious international theatre prize Primo Europa in 2018.

Premiere

18 Feb 2022

Stage

Stora Scen

Duration

2 hours including intermission