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
THEATER 14
-fall 1986
Did you ever dream about something, and when you get there it's just as fantastic as you dreamed? College. I didn't start out as a theater major, but may as well have. I chose West Chester because of the festival the previous year, and also because as a non-Master's program, i would have a chance to get into mainstage shows as an undergrad. I dove in. Auditions were announced for the fall show, abbreviatedly called MARAT/SADE. When i read it…as the title tells, i was no longer in Kansas. It was a show within a show based on the fact that a popular society event of the post-French Revolution was attending asylum plays. Sade was an inmate who wrote such shows. History has lost those plays, but this play is a "what might have been". I knew that as a freshman my chances of being cast were slim. The auditions were so much fun, and i got cast, not just as an inmate or guard, but as Cucurucu, one of the five singers. There were three or four other freshmen, but none with a part so large. There were a huge number of songs. I was amazed and happy beyond words, the feeling upon being cast was like that of JOSEPH. It was directed by Bob Bytnar, a bearded and balding energetic man of intelligence and talent. The show was a scathing indictment of corruption, cronyism, oppression, the rich...it had been huge in the 60s. The inner "play" consisted of brilliant, angry, drippingly sarcastic songs, interspersed with conversations between Sade and the inmate playing Marat. It all culminated in Marat's murder, at which point the inmates rise up and kill the guards and nobles. Incredible. Senior John Riddell played Sade. He was great. Senior John Biehle played Marat, and his unbalanced rantings were beautiful. Colleen Corbett, a junior transfer, played Marat's nurse, and the cast gave her a plastic faceguard, as Biehle spit when he got worked up. Senior Cheryl Graef played the murderous Charlotte Corday, and she was incredible. Mark Taylor played DuPerret, and his inmate "problem" was perpetual tumescence; he had a falsie in his pants, and he would constantly try to hump Corday while doing their scenes. Troy Wenger played Coulmier, the asylum manager. Lou Peters was frightening as the insane, straightjacketed priest, and Greg Longenhagen played the narrator with delicious glee. Of note as inmates were freshman Mark Schnovel, senior Cat Hasson, freshman Jeff Bleam, Karen Paxson, and a senior named Vince who shaved his head. Fellow singer Glenn Subers, a stiff lounge singer type, was great. Senior Traci Seschion, huge in talent and personality, also. Singers Duane McDevitt and Kirsta Stull were wonderful. The five of us had so much fun. We wore clown makeup. My costume was a revolutionary hat with a tall flower, slippers, and a big burlap sack (which some called a dress). I became known as "Wish We Could", a line of mine that would be mimicked for years to come. The other most-mimicked line was Biehle's "Wrong, Sade, wrong". The set by Wayne Merritt was intricate and incredible. Our main stage was a black box that had once been a school gymnasium. That semester, we built two huge lighting and sound towers, with connecting tunnels. By this point my fear of heights was gone, and i was one of the eager few to swing through the flies. MARAT/SADE was amazing…words kind of fail…it was the second play in my life that felt like it had no business being as good as it was. Metal bars separated us from the audience, and at the end we reached through, trying to get to them. Our depictions were so unnerving that many were terrified. The play was selected for the American College Theater Festival regionals in Ithaca, New York, an incredible experience highlighted by an all-deaf production of MACBETH. Our show took three of the four major awards, and was one of five selected nation-wide to go to nationals at the Kennedy Center in D.C. But the department's budget was empty. Very few seemed to mind terribly. Doing the show anywhere and anyhow, even once, was its own incredible reward.