“THE MARAT/Sade” | Groteska Theatre | 13th Days of Polish Culture

Duration: 2 hours
Age restriction: 15+

At the Charenton psychiatric hospital, patients stage a play about the final moments in the life of Jean-Paul Marat – one of the most radical figures of the French Revolution. The entire production is led by the Marquis de Sade, who guides the hospital’s residents through a reconstruction of the events of 1793.

Different positions and perspectives clash on stage: revolutionary faith in the possibility of radical change in the world and scepticism towards grand ideas that often lead to violence.

The patients of Charenton not only perform Marat’s story but also comment on and question it, causing the boundary between the performance and reality to gradually disappear.

The performance becomes a polyphonic story about the mechanisms of revolution and a question that has been repeated in every era: can the struggle for freedom justify everything?

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.