Weiss/brook

marat/sade

Graham Holderness

pp. 162-171

in: Brian Docherty (ed), Twentieth-century European drama, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1994

Abstract

Ask even a relatively well-informed person in Britain to name several works by Peter Weiss, and the list is likely to stop at one play: Marat/Sade — or, to give it its full title, The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Theatre Group of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Die Verfolgung und Erdmordung des Jean Paul Marat, dargestellet durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade, 1964). Weiss's voluminous writing as a whole, which includes prose narrative as well as theatrical work, is virtually unknown in this country. Where, in the British theatrical repertoire, or even in general theatrical knowledge, are plays such as The Insurance (Die Versicherung, 1952), Night with Guests (Nacht mit Gästen, 1963), The Investigation (Die Ermittlung, 1965), Song of the Lusitanian Bogey (Gesang vom lusitanischen Popanz, 1967), How Mr Mockinpott was Relieved of his Sufferings (Wie dem Herrn Mockinpott das Leiden ausgetrieben wurde, 1968), Trotsky in Exile (Trotzki im Exil, 1970), or even the better-known Vietnam Discourse of 1968?