MARAT/SADE
Castillo Theater
August 2000 — Fred Newman, occupies center stage and above author Emmitt H. Thrower play
artistic director of the off-off- it – a solitary reminder to the his counterpart. He portrays a
Broadway Castillo Theater, passing of time in this tomb of Marat plagued by an incessant
swam against the tide when he stifling immutability – hangs a itch and torn between mortal fear
took the risk of putting on Peter dripping block of ice. and bouts of revolutionary pas-
Weiss’ Marat/Sade once again. Surveillance monitors in guil- sion. Gabrielle Kurlander, as the
Newman saw Peter Brook’s lotine-like brackets reflect the sleepwalking Charlotte Corday,
Broadway production of the play past and present. As a solemn drifts like a drug addict from one
as a young man in 1965. “It Coulmier (Roger Grunwald), the state of absentmindedness to an-
wasn’t until the sixties ran director of the Asylum, an- other, hardly noticing the ad-
aground and the revolutionaries nounces the play to the audience, vances made on her by Duperret
got characterized as crazy that the rigid, uncanny figures (Jamel Thigpen, also a black ac-
the full significance of the play awaken and climb down onto the tor). Lonné Moretton’s ingen-
hit me.” Indeed, Newman’s vi- stage. The play begins on a ious choreography crystallizes
brant, American reproduction of ceremonious note. the intermittent progression of
Peter Weiss’ historical drama By contrast, the mood is dis- movement between the subdued
hits the spot and shows that the tinctly “pop” when the Four and turbulent scenes into impres-
piece has not lost any of its Singers, around whom the other sive group shots that, on the
grandeur or relevance since it actors form a choir, appear on small stage of the Castillo, bring
premiere in Berlin 35 years ago. stage. (Adrian Mitchell skillfully old history book illustrations to
Perhaps only due to the lim- adapted the lyrics; the music is mind.
ited space at the tiny Castillo by Richard Peaslee). In New- Newman deliberately pro-
Theater — and precisely as the man’s delightful production duces political theater with the
play intends — we find our- fragmented moments blend into Castillo-troupe and has himself
selves drawn into the perform- perfectly balanced, expertly ar- often written political plays in
ance. For the audience, the ranged musical numbers that, response to contemporary inci-
proximity of the action on stage dramatically speaking, create a dents. His brilliant Marat/Sade
clearly has a threatening quality fitting counterpoint to the mono- production is reminiscent of the
about it. You are startled, even logues and powerful dialogues sixties, an era strongly marked
as you enter the theater: hanging between Sade and Marat. by the Black Panthers, and yet
from the walls in rigid, twisted, Dave DeChristopher is a — by the same token — it is
misshapen positions are the ac- wonderful, dispassionate Mar- freed from the sixties: today in
tors, the inmates of the Asylum quis de Sade who has mastered New York it is impossible to see
of Charenton, all of them the art of silence in all it shades this uncompromising production
shrouded in baggy red and pink and is struggling with an arro- without bearing the political re-
robes, as though they had just gant air of resigned disdain to ality in mind. — Helmut Frielinghaus
been caught in an escape at- maintain distance and his sense (translated by Naheed Ebrahim
tempt. Marat’s steaming bath of dignity. The black actor and