National revisits ‘Marat/Sade’
The National Theater’s New Stage Nikos Kourkoulos opens the new year with Peter Weiss’s «Marat/Sade,» directed by the company’s deputy artistic director, Efi Theodorou. The play, which opens on Friday, explores the nature of revolt by examining one of the most powerful, subversive and pivotal periods of world history, namely the French Revolution. In the play, set nearly 20 years after the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade is staging the story of the assassination of leading revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, at the Charenton asylum, casting the establishment’s inmates. The play’s full title is «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.» Essentially, the play is a game of history as seen through two powerful filters: de Sade’s take on events and the interpretation of the asylum’s inmates, the latter invited to relive their pasts through their own madness. This the second time the National Theater will be presenting the play written by Weiss in 1963 – the current production is based on the initial translation by Marios Ploritis. At the New Stage, the set design was created by Efi Manidaki, the music is by Nikos Platanos and the videos were created by Eva Stefani. The cast includes Michalis Afolayan, Costas Vasardanis, Kora Karvounis, Elias Kounelas, Themis Panou, Nikos Platanos and Minas Hadjisavvas. National Theater of Greece, New Stage Nikos Kourkoulos, 22-24 Aghiou Constantinou, box office tel 210.528.8170-1
