An awful lot has been written about this production over the past week so for what it's worth here's my take.
Anyone going to see a production which includes the Marquis de Sade as a major player is, at best, naive if they don't expect sexual perversion topped with a healthy dollop of sado-masochism. I would love to go into a tirade about certain sections of the media who think they are protecting the moral turpitude of the British pubic, but we are all entitled to our opinion, however misguided the reasoning. I will simply say, please, don't ever presume to be offended on my behalf and I will protect my own morality.
I am so glad I saw this and I did enjoy it. The first half is perhaps too long, there are moments where you fear that tedium will take over and I missed much of the dialogue and lyrics in the songs. However, there was much to like.
I enjoyed Lisa Hammond's Herald, I have to say that because I ended up just a little bit scared of her. But despite some of the rhyming couplets she was having to deal with being rather clunky, she carried off her position of sardonic commentator with ease. Jasper Britton's chameleon-like Marquis had some great moments, particularly the hi-jacking of the motorised wheelchair. I did, however, object to the farting bishop, not through any offence – I just don't like fart jokes. I must single out Golda Rosheuvel, one of the ensemble players, an asylum inmate, she was utterly compelling to watch. Her repetitive behaviour and compulsive physical and vocal tics were brilliantly sustained throughout the show - for me, the stand out performance of the night.
I don't know enough about the original script to be able to comment on what constituted a directorial gratuitous addition in the staging and what is explicitly written. I liked the idea of keeping the play set in 1808 and yet updating everything around it. Coulmier, the director of the asylum, controlled the inmates with a smartphone, sending texts when they got out of line, a convention which worked surprisingly well. Marat typed his lists of the condemned on a laptop rather than writing with quill and ink and Charlotte Corday shot him with a pistol, no knife, no blood. This interestingly makes the murder less personal, less visceral and somehow at odds with the rest of the piece.
There is some great technical stuff happening in this production, notwithstanding the mobile phones, I would love to know how that worked and if it always worked. A great set design was complimented by terrific lighting which at one point made the balconies around the theatre appear to rise and fall as though in a silent earthquake, an extraordinary effect.
On the night I went I saw no 'mass walkout', the audience consisted of what I would call a typical RSC audience who thanked the company with enthusiastic applause at the end of the evening. May theatre never be dull.
Ali
