The Indiana University Department of Theatre and Drama opens the spring semester with Peter Weiss's Tony Award winning play Marat/Sade.
The director is IU Faculty member Dale McFadden. MFA student actor Abby Rowold plays the role of the director of the asylum, Coulmier.
McFadden believes that most productions of the play have missed the significance of Coulmier. "The director is really a key character both in the history and in the play itself. The pride that the director feels is founded, but smug and its break down is a key to the arc of the drama."
Abby Rowold says that creating the character is a challenge. Peter Weiss hasn't given me a lot to work with. There isn't much in the text. Building a back story, a basis for realizing this figure has taken some real research, introspection and lots of conferences with Dale."
Mcfadden noted that there's a current special fascination with Marat/Sade . "The drama that Sade directs with the members of the asylum is the murder of the revolutionary leader Marat by Charlotte Corday. With individuals strapping themselves with explosives and walking into crowds and killing drones flying over Afghanistan the issue of political assassination is very much in the news and in our consciousness."
The IU production of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade opens with performances on Friday and Saturday February 5th and 6th and continues the 9th through the 13th.
Marat/Sade
Directed by Dale McFadden
Indiana University Wells-Metz Theatre
Feb 5, 6 and 9-13 at 7:30 pm, matinee Feb 13 at 2 pm.