the persecution and assassination of jean- · 2019. 3. 22. · marquis de sade, as he tries to show...
TRANSCRIPT
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
By Peter Weiss
Translation: Geoffrey Skelton
Verse Adaptation: Adrian Mitchell
Composer: Cuinn Joseph
Directors
Paymun Nematol lahi and Bi l l Kerr
Music Director
Cuinn Joseph
Stage Manager
Tess Zeiner
Set Designer
Shane Stewart
Costume Designer
Karen Schel lenberg
Light ing Designer
Er ic Bossé
Sound Designer
Jonathan Couchman
Vocal Coach
Kerensa Peters
Choreographer
Kas Kurotpawa Produced by special arrangement with THE DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, Illinois
The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.
We respect the Treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership
with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration
.
Manuel Ortega
Queen Esther Okogwu
Keanna Caguioa
Reid Girard
Monique Gauthier
Sherab R. Yolmo
Hayley Stacey
Betty Asseiro
Evan Martin
Reena Jolly
Becky Zacharias
Melanee Deschambeault
Ben Krawchuk
Glorya Thompson
Mitchell Condon
Robyn Johnson
Amelia Warkentin
Rebecca Gossel
Bryson Mcburney-Flett
Grace Sunday Unah
Stephen Gatphoh
Wyatt Cantin
Delton Kreller
Leah Borchert
Joshua Dreger
Coulmier
Coulmier’s Wife
Coulmier’s Daughter
Herald
Kokol
Polpoch
Cucurucu
Rossignol
Roux
Corday
Marat
Simonne
Sade
Duperret
Abbot
Mad Animal
School Master
Mother
Father
Newly Rich
Voltaire
Lavoisier
Army
Church
Scientist
Cast
Turn your cell phone to silent and put it away please.
Refrain from using cameras or recording devices during the performance
Sam Hodge
Mike Swain
Manit Singh Dhingra
Tabitha Clavecillas
Andrew Vineberg
Heidi Schatzlein
Julie Anderson
Evangelen Lee
Bailey Peterson
Annie MacRae
Violet Brooks
Anaka Sandhu
Jeyi Namwira
Stephen Rae A. Libarnes
Prabhanshu Shrivastava
Cuinn Joseph
Kas Kuroptwa
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Aristocrat/Patient
Sister
Sister
Sister
Sister
Nurse
Nurse
Nurse
Musician
Musician
There will be one 15 minutes intermission. Act 1 is approximately 1 and a half hours.
Act 2 is approximately 40 minutes.
Cast continued
Please be advised: Theatrical fog will be used in this Production.
It is a water based product and should not cause any respiratory distress.
Crew
Assis tant Stage Managers
J i l l ian Boersch & Jade Fryza
Fight Captain
Evan Martin
SFX Operators
Ami Buhler, Ayobami Ige, Jordan Moreau
Light Operator
Chantelle Dubois
House Manager
Apata Oluwademilade
Assistant Costume Designers
Ami Buhler & Becky Zacharias
Costume Coordinators
Rowan Gannon & Tara Noel
Assistant Set Designers
Harlan Boughen & Robyn Hasselstrom
Props Coordinator
Jordan Moreau
Set Carpenter
Josephine Kinyanjui
Scenic Painter
Lemeng Yang
Assistant Painters
Evan Pham & Haolan Wen
Historical Researcher
Shaylyn Maharaj-Poliah
Publicists
Lauren Gowler & Ayobami Ige
Poster Design
Lauren Gowler
1789
June 17 – The Third Estate (commoners) de-clares the National Assembly.
June 20 – Members of the Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath demanding certain rights from the king.
July 14 – The French Revolution begins with the Storming of the Bastille.
August 26 – The National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of man and of the Cit-izen.
October 5 – A large group of women (and men) march from Paris to Versailles to demand lower bread prices. They force the king and queen to move back to Paris.
October 6 – The Jacobin Club is formed. Its members become some of the most radical leaders of the French Revolution.
1791
June 20-21 – The “Flight to Varennes” occurs when the royal family, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, attempt to flee. They are captured and returned to France.
September 14 – King Louis XVI formally signs the new constitution.
October 1 – The Legislative Assembly is formed.
1792
March 20 – The guillotine becomes the official method of execution.
April 20 – France declares war against Austria.
September 2-7 – The September Massacres oc-cur. Thousands of political prisoners are killed before they can be freed by royalist troops.
September 20 – The National Convention is established.
September 22 – The First French Republic is founded.
1793
January 21 – King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine.
March 7 – Civil war breaks out in the Vendée area of France between revolutionaries and roy-alists.
April 6 – The Committee of Public Safety is formed. It will rule France during the Reign of Terror.
July 13 – Radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated by Charlotte Corday.
July 17 – Charlotte Corday is executed by guil-lotine.
September 5 – The Reign of Terror begins as Robespierre, the leader of the Committee of Public Safety, declares that terror will be the “order of the day” for the revolutionary govern-ment.
September 17 – The Law of Suspects is de-creed. Anyone suspected of opposing the revo-lutionary government is arrested. Thousands of people will be executed over the next year.
October 16 – Queen Marie Antoinette is exe-cuted by guillotine.
1794
July 27 – The Reign of Terror comes to an end as Robespierre is overthrown.
July 28 – Robespierre is executed by guillotine.
May 8 – Famous chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the “father of modern chemistry”, is executed for being a traitor.
1795
July 14 – “La Marseillaise” is adopted as the na-tional anthem of France.
November 2 - The Directory is formed and takes control of the government of France.
1799
November 9 – Napoleon overthrows the Direc-tory and establishes the French Consulate with Napoleon as leader of France. This brings an end to the French Revolution.
French Revolution Timeline:
Historical Notes
Jean-Paul Marat, an influential radical militant Montagnard, was elected to the
French National Convention, the first form of government without a monarch, in
1790. He was famous for his political writings, particularly his newspaper entitled
“L’ami du people” (lit. “Friends of the People”), which denounced the Bourgeoisie.
In addition, he was instrumental in the carrying out of the September Massacres,
which occurred in 1792 and led to the execution of over a thousand prisoners.
The controversial Marquis de Sade was freed from incarceration and elected to the
French National Convention but was later re-incarcerated for the last twelve years of
his life at Charenton Asylum which, at the time, was called the “Maison Nationale de
Charenton” (lit. the National House of Charenton). It was there, encouraged by the
director of the asylum, Francois Simonet de Coulmier, that he put on plays with
casts comprised of his fellow inmates.
The play put on by the inmates dramatizes Marat’s assassination by Charlotte
Corday during Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Corday was a Girondin sympathizer.
Together the Girondins and Montagnards made up the Jacobin Club, but the
Girondins were more liberal than the Montagnards and far less political. They could
be considered to be more of a resistance group than they were a political party.
Corday murdered Marat in order to prevent a civil war between these groups, but his
death had the opposite effect as he was later seen as a martyr by the Montagnards.
At the same time, her assassination of Marat challenged the gender norms of the
period since women were meant to rule the private sphere, whereas Corday was out
in public making a political statement. She was made an example of and guillotined
in 1793. She was only twenty-four.
The French Revolution eventually resulted in the monarchy being overthrown and
the abolishment of feudalism. The church and state were finally separated and the
French Consulate was established, which was a step towards a democratic
government until Napoleon’s rule as Emperor began in 1804. The staging of the
patients’ performance at Charenton Ayslum for an audience of aristocrats is in 1808,
four years into Napoleon’s reign.
Bill Kerr’s Notes:
I want to begin with my admiration for the artistic ensemble and amazement
about the creative process for this piece, a process which so echoes its content.
Somehow this creation emerges out of chaos and embraces the chaos in the
creation. Peter Weiss’s combination of elements of Brecht’s Epic Theatre and
Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty in this piece demands such creation. First and foremost,
it calls for Theatre of Cruelty’s intense and many-layered experience using all
theatrical tools available. It contains multiple styles of performance including ritual,
narration, song, dance, drama, melodrama, low comedy, debate, gestures, patterns,
sounds, masks, lights, and so on. It strives to wholly involve the audience again in the
theatrical ritual. Secondly that experience, that total theatre, then provokes a
Brechtian response, forcing us to reexamine our beliefs and question any and all
assumptions about society without providing answers. As Sade says in one edition:
“Our play’s chief aim has been – to take to bits
Great propositions and their opposites,
See how they work, let them fight it out. …
I have twisted and turned them every way
And find no ending to our play. …
So for me the last word can never be spoken.
I am left with a question that’s always open.”
And so is the audience.
We have also configured our new space to be a slightly thrust one for the first time,
simply so that there is enough room for all the space required by the set and the cast
(and to allow a very immersive experience for some). A massive and powerful neo-
classically inspired asylum has been built with multiple levels and multiple entrances
and exits through bolt holes, cells, massage beds, and showers. The feel is that of
powerful symmetry permeated with irregularities and irruptions: an Enlightenment
space with constant flaws, mirroring the debate between Coulmier who champions
enlightenment and Sade who exposes a lack of light within it (and us).
The BHTC would like to thank:
University College; Prairie Theatre Exchange; Claire Sparling; Theatre Incarnate; Manitoba Theatre for Young People; C. Summer Holmes; Bart Stewart and students at Winnipeg
Industrial Skills Training Centre; Paul East at Sound Broadcasting Ltd.; Henry Woolf; Brenda McLean; and
Introduction to Theatre Students.
Paymun Nematollahi’s Note:
Truth is not subjective, however, morality is. The right of judgment should not
be bestowed on one who lacks full knowledge of a given circumstance. What is
wrong, may be right, when the logic leading to it is considered. These ideas shape
the core of Marat/Sade. In chaotic times, in this case the French Revolution, despite
having done considerable good deeds, well intended ideologies have led to
inconceivable atrocities. The enlightened people of the time, like Coulmier, did
support Napoleon’s conquests. And defenders of the working class like Marat and
Roux, did strive for countless executions. In the midst of this chaos, this play follows
the person who was considered to be the most immoral of them all at that time, the
Marquis de Sade, as he tries to show the irony of revolutionaries being guilty of what
once they persecuted the royalty for. Each side of the conversation rejects the
opposition, failing to see the other’s perspective and rationality. As Peter Brook said
“[This play] is not polemical in a sense that it does not prove a case nor draw a
moral. Certainly, its prismatic structure is such that the last line is not a place to
search for the summing-up idea. The idea of the play is the play itself, and this
cannot be resolved in a simple slogan”. And just like that, often truth is too
complicated to be summarized in a click-bait headline, a simple slogan. Therefore,
Marat/Sade keeps its relevance, especially given the current political climate, and
social media culture.
Program Co-ordinator / Artistic Director
Bill Kerr
Production Manager
Karen Schellenberg
Technical Director
Shane Stewart
Office Administrator
Ivan Henwood
Publicity and Social Media
Lauren Gowler & Ayobami Ige
Teaching Staff
Margaret Groome: Professor
Bill Kerr: Professor
Bob Smith: Professor
Karen Schellenberg: Instructor
Thomas Soares: Instructor
Chris Johnson : Senior Scholar
Shaylyn Mahraj-Poliah: Teaching Assistant
For The Theatre Program
From Paymun and Bill: In order to rise to the experience demanded by Weiss, we have needed a true collaboration from all the artists involved. We have a terrific team guiding the musical element of our production. Our version uses the lyrics from the play but has original music composed by Cuinn Joseph who is also our musical director (and band leader) and choreography by Kas Kuropatwa (also a band member) and vocal coaching by Kerensa Peters. An enourmous amount of work has been done by our designers (Karen Schellenberg (costumes), Shane Stewart (set), Eric Bosse (lights), and John Couchman (sound)) and by each member of our crew led by team leaders in set building, costumes, painting, prop-making and on and on. This production has made immense demands on everyone. One of the challenges and opportunities of the play for actors is that the patients do not match (and do not need to match) the physical characteristics of the characters they portray in the play within the play. Therefore, we were able to cast any actors in patient roles and then add another layer of costume to indicate social role in the play within the play. At the same time we had to be mindful not to use mental illness metaphorically. The actors had the challenge of creating patients in an asylum with a full life who are taking parts in this play as a part of their therapy. Other actors had the more traditional challenge of embodying characters from start to finish, but all were also required to be constantly present, to constantly bring their energy and focus. It has, in short, been a true artistic ensemble and it has been a pleasure for us to be members of that company
The Theatre Company invites you to
Year End Gala
Karaoke, Pool, and those Award Thingies…
April 21 From 9:30pm—Close
Triple-B’s on Scurfield Blvd
The Theatre Program invites you to
Scene Night 2018 Come celebrate another year of hard
work with scenes from all our acting and directing classes.
Friday, April 13th at 7:00 PM
John J. Conklin Theatre
What’s happening in 2018/2019?
November will bring Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood directed by Bob Smith & Bill Lee in the style of Japanese Noh Theatre to the Gail Asper Performing Arts Hall.
March will see Margaret Groome direct Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare’s pastoral set romantic comedy.
Our executive is still working hard to fill the January and LunchB.H.A.G.g spots with great student/alumni driven works.
And we are in the process of hiring a new tenure track faculty member. More information will follow soon.