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

By Peter Weiss

Translation: Geoffrey Skelton

Verse Adaptation: Adrian Mitchell

Composer: Cuinn Joseph

Directors

Paymun Nematol lahi and Bi l l Kerr

Music Director

Cuinn Joseph

Stage Manager

Tess Zeiner

Set Designer

Shane Stewart

Costume Designer

Karen Schel lenberg

Light ing Designer

Er ic Bossé

Sound Designer

Jonathan Couchman

Vocal Coach

Kerensa Peters

Choreographer

Kas Kurotpawa Produced by special arrangement with THE DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, Illinois

The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

We respect the Treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership

with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration

.

Manuel Ortega

Queen Esther Okogwu

Keanna Caguioa

Reid Girard

Monique Gauthier

Sherab R. Yolmo

Hayley Stacey

Betty Asseiro

Evan Martin

Reena Jolly

Becky Zacharias

Melanee Deschambeault

Ben Krawchuk

Glorya Thompson

Mitchell Condon

Robyn Johnson

Amelia Warkentin

Rebecca Gossel

Bryson Mcburney-Flett

Grace Sunday Unah

Stephen Gatphoh

Wyatt Cantin

Delton Kreller

Leah Borchert

Joshua Dreger

Coulmier

Coulmier’s Wife

Coulmier’s Daughter

Herald

Kokol

Polpoch

Cucurucu

Rossignol

Roux

Corday

Marat

Simonne

Sade

Duperret

Abbot

Mad Animal

School Master

Mother

Father

Newly Rich

Voltaire

Lavoisier

Army

Church

Scientist

Cast

Turn your cell phone to silent and put it away please.

Refrain from using cameras or recording devices during the performance

Sam Hodge

Mike Swain

Manit Singh Dhingra

Tabitha Clavecillas

Andrew Vineberg

Heidi Schatzlein

Julie Anderson

Evangelen Lee

Bailey Peterson

Annie MacRae

Violet Brooks

Anaka Sandhu

Jeyi Namwira

Stephen Rae A. Libarnes

Prabhanshu Shrivastava

Cuinn Joseph

Kas Kuroptwa

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Aristocrat/Patient

Sister

Sister

Sister

Sister

Nurse

Nurse

Nurse

Musician

Musician

There will be one 15 minutes intermission. Act 1 is approximately 1 and a half hours.

Act 2 is approximately 40 minutes.

Cast continued

Please be advised: Theatrical fog will be used in this Production.

It is a water based product and should not cause any respiratory distress.

Crew

Assis tant Stage Managers

J i l l ian Boersch & Jade Fryza

Fight Captain

Evan Martin

SFX Operators

Ami Buhler, Ayobami Ige, Jordan Moreau

Light Operator

Chantelle Dubois

House Manager

Apata Oluwademilade

Assistant Costume Designers

Ami Buhler & Becky Zacharias

Costume Coordinators

Rowan Gannon & Tara Noel

Assistant Set Designers

Harlan Boughen & Robyn Hasselstrom

Props Coordinator

Jordan Moreau

Set Carpenter

Josephine Kinyanjui

Scenic Painter

Lemeng Yang

Assistant Painters

Evan Pham & Haolan Wen

Historical Researcher

Shaylyn Maharaj-Poliah

Publicists

Lauren Gowler & Ayobami Ige

Poster Design

Lauren Gowler

1789

June 17 – The Third Estate (commoners) de-clares the National Assembly.

June 20 – Members of the Third Estate take the Tennis Court Oath demanding certain rights from the king.

July 14 – The French Revolution begins with the Storming of the Bastille.

August 26 – The National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of man and of the Cit-izen.

October 5 – A large group of women (and men) march from Paris to Versailles to demand lower bread prices. They force the king and queen to move back to Paris.

October 6 – The Jacobin Club is formed. Its members become some of the most radical leaders of the French Revolution.

1791

June 20-21 – The “Flight to Varennes” occurs when the royal family, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, attempt to flee. They are captured and returned to France.

September 14 – King Louis XVI formally signs the new constitution.

October 1 – The Legislative Assembly is formed.

1792

March 20 – The guillotine becomes the official method of execution.

April 20 – France declares war against Austria.

September 2-7 – The September Massacres oc-cur. Thousands of political prisoners are killed before they can be freed by royalist troops.

September 20 – The National Convention is established.

September 22 – The First French Republic is founded.

1793

January 21 – King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine.

March 7 – Civil war breaks out in the Vendée area of France between revolutionaries and roy-alists.

April 6 – The Committee of Public Safety is formed. It will rule France during the Reign of Terror.

July 13 – Radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated by Charlotte Corday.

July 17 – Charlotte Corday is executed by guil-lotine.

September 5 – The Reign of Terror begins as Robespierre, the leader of the Committee of Public Safety, declares that terror will be the “order of the day” for the revolutionary govern-ment.

September 17 – The Law of Suspects is de-creed. Anyone suspected of opposing the revo-lutionary government is arrested. Thousands of people will be executed over the next year.

October 16 – Queen Marie Antoinette is exe-cuted by guillotine.

1794

July 27 – The Reign of Terror comes to an end as Robespierre is overthrown.

July 28 – Robespierre is executed by guillotine.

May 8 – Famous chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the “father of modern chemistry”, is executed for being a traitor.

1795

July 14 – “La Marseillaise” is adopted as the na-tional anthem of France.

November 2 - The Directory is formed and takes control of the government of France.

1799

November 9 – Napoleon overthrows the Direc-tory and establishes the French Consulate with Napoleon as leader of France. This brings an end to the French Revolution.

French Revolution Timeline:

Historical Notes

Jean-Paul Marat, an influential radical militant Montagnard, was elected to the

French National Convention, the first form of government without a monarch, in

1790. He was famous for his political writings, particularly his newspaper entitled

“L’ami du people” (lit. “Friends of the People”), which denounced the Bourgeoisie.

In addition, he was instrumental in the carrying out of the September Massacres,

which occurred in 1792 and led to the execution of over a thousand prisoners.

The controversial Marquis de Sade was freed from incarceration and elected to the

French National Convention but was later re-incarcerated for the last twelve years of

his life at Charenton Asylum which, at the time, was called the “Maison Nationale de

Charenton” (lit. the National House of Charenton). It was there, encouraged by the

director of the asylum, Francois Simonet de Coulmier, that he put on plays with

casts comprised of his fellow inmates.

The play put on by the inmates dramatizes Marat’s assassination by Charlotte

Corday during Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Corday was a Girondin sympathizer.

Together the Girondins and Montagnards made up the Jacobin Club, but the

Girondins were more liberal than the Montagnards and far less political. They could

be considered to be more of a resistance group than they were a political party.

Corday murdered Marat in order to prevent a civil war between these groups, but his

death had the opposite effect as he was later seen as a martyr by the Montagnards.

At the same time, her assassination of Marat challenged the gender norms of the

period since women were meant to rule the private sphere, whereas Corday was out

in public making a political statement. She was made an example of and guillotined

in 1793. She was only twenty-four.

The French Revolution eventually resulted in the monarchy being overthrown and

the abolishment of feudalism. The church and state were finally separated and the

French Consulate was established, which was a step towards a democratic

government until Napoleon’s rule as Emperor began in 1804. The staging of the

patients’ performance at Charenton Ayslum for an audience of aristocrats is in 1808,

four years into Napoleon’s reign.

Bill Kerr’s Notes:

I want to begin with my admiration for the artistic ensemble and amazement

about the creative process for this piece, a process which so echoes its content.

Somehow this creation emerges out of chaos and embraces the chaos in the

creation. Peter Weiss’s combination of elements of Brecht’s Epic Theatre and

Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty in this piece demands such creation. First and foremost,

it calls for Theatre of Cruelty’s intense and many-layered experience using all

theatrical tools available. It contains multiple styles of performance including ritual,

narration, song, dance, drama, melodrama, low comedy, debate, gestures, patterns,

sounds, masks, lights, and so on. It strives to wholly involve the audience again in the

theatrical ritual. Secondly that experience, that total theatre, then provokes a

Brechtian response, forcing us to reexamine our beliefs and question any and all

assumptions about society without providing answers. As Sade says in one edition:

“Our play’s chief aim has been – to take to bits

Great propositions and their opposites,

See how they work, let them fight it out. …

I have twisted and turned them every way

And find no ending to our play. …

So for me the last word can never be spoken.

I am left with a question that’s always open.”

And so is the audience.

We have also configured our new space to be a slightly thrust one for the first time,

simply so that there is enough room for all the space required by the set and the cast

(and to allow a very immersive experience for some). A massive and powerful neo-

classically inspired asylum has been built with multiple levels and multiple entrances

and exits through bolt holes, cells, massage beds, and showers. The feel is that of

powerful symmetry permeated with irregularities and irruptions: an Enlightenment

space with constant flaws, mirroring the debate between Coulmier who champions

enlightenment and Sade who exposes a lack of light within it (and us).

The BHTC would like to thank:

University College; Prairie Theatre Exchange; Claire Sparling; Theatre Incarnate; Manitoba Theatre for Young People; C. Summer Holmes; Bart Stewart and students at Winnipeg

Industrial Skills Training Centre; Paul East at Sound Broadcasting Ltd.; Henry Woolf; Brenda McLean; and

Introduction to Theatre Students.

Paymun Nematollahi’s Note:

Truth is not subjective, however, morality is. The right of judgment should not

be bestowed on one who lacks full knowledge of a given circumstance. What is

wrong, may be right, when the logic leading to it is considered. These ideas shape

the core of Marat/Sade. In chaotic times, in this case the French Revolution, despite

having done considerable good deeds, well intended ideologies have led to

inconceivable atrocities. The enlightened people of the time, like Coulmier, did

support Napoleon’s conquests. And defenders of the working class like Marat and

Roux, did strive for countless executions. In the midst of this chaos, this play follows

the person who was considered to be the most immoral of them all at that time, the

Marquis de Sade, as he tries to show the irony of revolutionaries being guilty of what

once they persecuted the royalty for. Each side of the conversation rejects the

opposition, failing to see the other’s perspective and rationality. As Peter Brook said

“[This play] is not polemical in a sense that it does not prove a case nor draw a

moral. Certainly, its prismatic structure is such that the last line is not a place to

search for the summing-up idea. The idea of the play is the play itself, and this

cannot be resolved in a simple slogan”. And just like that, often truth is too

complicated to be summarized in a click-bait headline, a simple slogan. Therefore,

Marat/Sade keeps its relevance, especially given the current political climate, and

social media culture.

Program Co-ordinator / Artistic Director

Bill Kerr

Production Manager

Karen Schellenberg

Technical Director

Shane Stewart

Office Administrator

Ivan Henwood

Publicity and Social Media

Lauren Gowler & Ayobami Ige

Teaching Staff

Margaret Groome: Professor

Bill Kerr: Professor

Bob Smith: Professor

Karen Schellenberg: Instructor

Thomas Soares: Instructor

Chris Johnson : Senior Scholar

Shaylyn Mahraj-Poliah: Teaching Assistant

For The Theatre Program

From Paymun and Bill: In order to rise to the experience demanded by Weiss, we have needed a true collaboration from all the artists involved. We have a terrific team guiding the musical element of our production. Our version uses the lyrics from the play but has original music composed by Cuinn Joseph who is also our musical director (and band leader) and choreography by Kas Kuropatwa (also a band member) and vocal coaching by Kerensa Peters. An enourmous amount of work has been done by our designers (Karen Schellenberg (costumes), Shane Stewart (set), Eric Bosse (lights), and John Couchman (sound)) and by each member of our crew led by team leaders in set building, costumes, painting, prop-making and on and on. This production has made immense demands on everyone. One of the challenges and opportunities of the play for actors is that the patients do not match (and do not need to match) the physical characteristics of the characters they portray in the play within the play. Therefore, we were able to cast any actors in patient roles and then add another layer of costume to indicate social role in the play within the play. At the same time we had to be mindful not to use mental illness metaphorically. The actors had the challenge of creating patients in an asylum with a full life who are taking parts in this play as a part of their therapy. Other actors had the more traditional challenge of embodying characters from start to finish, but all were also required to be constantly present, to constantly bring their energy and focus. It has, in short, been a true artistic ensemble and it has been a pleasure for us to be members of that company

The Theatre Company invites you to

Year End Gala

Karaoke, Pool, and those Award Thingies…

April 21 From 9:30pm—Close

Triple-B’s on Scurfield Blvd

The Theatre Program invites you to

Scene Night 2018 Come celebrate another year of hard

work with scenes from all our acting and directing classes.

Friday, April 13th at 7:00 PM

John J. Conklin Theatre

What’s happening in 2018/2019?

November will bring Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood directed by Bob Smith & Bill Lee in the style of Japanese Noh Theatre to the Gail Asper Performing Arts Hall.

March will see Margaret Groome direct Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare’s pastoral set romantic comedy.

Our executive is still working hard to fill the January and LunchB.H.A.G.g spots with great student/alumni driven works.

And we are in the process of hiring a new tenure track faculty member. More information will follow soon.