PERFORMANCE „THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF MARAT“ (Męczeństwo i śmierć Marata) GROTESKA THEATRE

Duration: 2 hrs.
Age rating: 15+

At the Charenton psychiatric hospital, patients stage a performance about the final moments in the life of Jean-Paul Marat – one of the most radical figures of the French Revolution. The whole endeavour is directed by the Marquis de Sade, who leads the hospital's residents through a reconstruction of the events of 1793.

On stage, different positions and viewpoints clash: revolutionary belief in the possibility of radical change in the world, and scepticism toward grand ideas that often lead to violence.

The Charenton patients don't just act out Marat's story – they also comment on it and question it, so the boundary between performance and reality gradually begins to dissolve.

The performance becomes a multi-voiced narrative about the mechanisms of revolution and a question that recurs in every era: can the fight for freedom justify anything?

Based on: Peter Weiss's play „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“.