URI Theatre To Open With Marat Sade

KINGSTON – The University of Rhode Island’s Department of Theatre will open its season with the dramatic production of Marat Sade.

The show will run Oct. 13 to 15, and Oct. 20 to 22 at 7:30 p.m., and Oct 16 and 23 at 3 p.m. in the Robert E. Will Theatre in the URI Fine Arts Center, 105 Upper College Road, Kingston.

General admission is $16, $12 for seniors and URI staff, and $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased by calling 874-5843 or online at www.uri.edu/theatre.

Marat Sade: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as peformed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis De Sade is a play-within-a play, and it is not historical drama. 

It’s thought is as modern as today’s police states and “the bomb”; its theatrical impact has universally been called a major innovation.  It is total theater; philosophically problematic, visually terrifying, it engages the eye, the ear and the mind with every imaginable dramatic device, technique and stage picture including song and dance.

It asks: Are the same things true for the masses and for their leaders?  And where, in modern times, lie the borders of sanity?

In 1809 at the Charenton Mental Asylum, an invited audience waits to witness a drama about the assassination of French Revolutionary Jean Paul Marat. The play, written and directed by the institution’s most notorious resident, the Marquis De Sade, centers around his argument that an individual does not find meaning through politics but rather through acts of spontaneous passion and desire.

Peter Weiss’ play-within-a-play combines startling graphic and violent images with political discourse and upbeat songs and music.  Influenced by the great German director and playwright Bertolt Brecht, the play moves toward its shocking climax while dealing with themes of revolution, power and human frailty.

The show is directed by URI lecturer Alan Hawkridge. Costumes are by associate professor David T. Howard, with sets by guest artist Kathryn Kawecki. The lighting design is by associate professor Christian Wittwer, and the sound design is by guest artist Mike Hyde. Junior theatre major Andrew Burnap provides the music direction.

South County residents in the production are:

• Actor, Character, Hometown
• Andrew Burnap, Jean Paul Marat, South Kingstown
• Birk Wozniak, Duperret, North Kingstown
• Travis Greene, Herald, North Kingstown
• Justin Morrison, Guard, North Kingstown
• Lauren Hanson, Mother, East Greenwich

Release courtesy of the URI Theatre Department.