MARAT/SADE
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about,
if
not outright dislike for, Brook's production of Weiss's play. Why?
Three "received ideas" seem to me to underlie most caviling at
Weiss's play in Brook's production of it.
The connection between theater and literature.
One received idea:
a work of theater is a branch of literature. The truth is, some works of
theater may be judged primarily as works of literature, others not.
It is because this is not admitted, or generally understood, that one
reads all too frequently the statement that while
Marat/Sade
is, theatric–
ally, one of the most stunning things anyone has seen on the stage, it's
a "director's play," meaning, a first-rate production of a second-rate
play. A well-known and very intelligent English poet told me he detested
the play for this reason: because·although he thought it marvelous when
he saw it, he
knew
that if it hadn't had the benefit of Peter Brook's
production, he wouldn't have liked it. It's also reported that the play in
piscator's production last year in West Berlin made nowhere near the
striking impression it does in the current production in London.
Without doubt,
Marat/Sade
is far from being the supreme master–
piece of contemporary dramatic literature, but it is scarcely a second-rate
play. (Adrian Mitchell's English translation, by the way, sounded to my
ear very graceful and idiomatic.) Considered as a text alone,
Marat/Sade
is
stirring, exciting, at times exalting. It is not the play which is at fault,
but narrow expectations about the theater. For most people,
Marat/Sade
is,
simply, too much.
And to the extent that it is true that Weiss's text is enhanced greatly
by being joined with Peter Brook's staging, what of that? Apart from
a theater of dialogue (of language) in which the text is primary, there
is
also a theater of the senses. The first one might call "play," the second
"theater work." In the case of a pure theater work, the writer who
sets
down words which are to be spoken by actors and staged by a
director loses his primacy. In this case, the "author" or "creator" is,
to quote Artaud, none other than "the person who controls the direct
handling of the stage." The director's
art
is a material art-an art in
which he deals with the bodies of actors, the props, the lights, the music.
And what Brook has put together is particularly brilliant and inventive
-the rhythm of the staging, the costumes, the ensemble mime scenes.
In every detail of the production-one of the most remarkable elements
of which is the clangorous tuneful music (by Richard Peaslee) featuring
bells, cymbals, and the organ-there is an inexhaustible material in–
ventiveness, a relentless address to the senses. Yet, something about
Brook's sheer virtuosity in stage effects offends. It seems, to most people,
to overwhelm the text. But perhaps that's just the point.
