232
MICHAEL
ROLOFF
that develops toward the end but the constant pull and tug of
the
arguments, which are intended to see through the humbug of society
and to provoke the audience to think. Chaos, the inability to
think,
the inability to take action and to change society always lurk in
the
background-and, indeed, Marat time and again says, "Something
is
being planned there, something destructive is being prepared again
behind those walls." Marat's paranoia is well-founded; he has been
pushed into a comer, yet he does not tire of proclaiming his truth,
in spite of exile and exhaustion and illness.
Sade is an admonisher. He fears that political power
will
cause
curtailment of freedom of expression, and he is always right
in
mentioning this. His point of view should also be evident at all times.
At the end of the play the question is: why did the Revolution
fail? Why did Napoleon come? One can then take this question
and
apply it to any number of historical situations, right up to the present
These are only fragmentary allusions: much more could
be
said
about all this. But, in any case, you are right in thinking that
I
was
primarily interested in representing a never-ending dialogue and
that
the purpose of the dialOgUe is to clarify the situation. Everything
irrational and absurd is foreign to me.
'
~ru1i:~
The Modern Image
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From the pages of
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ten short stories On contemporary themes
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