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Nice little article in the NYTimes about these unsung heroes of our industry, who don’t get nearly the accolades they deserve.

Thank you, guys.

Tubthumping

After many of our performances, we hold an “OpenForum” discussion where we talk about the show and the story in a book club sorta-style. We want the talking to continue (we are called FORUM and all) and have created this nifty little blog to do so.

So, for those of you who have been out to the Playhouse Asylum, what are your thoughts?

(note: some comments may contain “spoilers.”  Haven’t seen the show and want to be surprised?  Then check these discussions after the performance.)

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Here are a few topics that have come up in our recent OpenForum discussions:

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What themes brought out in the play feel especially resonant today?

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What are some last images that have stayed with you after the performance?

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Have we evolved, as a society, in the ways of equality and democracy, or is civilization in a loop? Is 1808 any different that 2008?

Steve Beall as COULMIER (with Parker Dixon as DUPPERET, right)

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Jesse Terrill as the HERALD (with Eric Messner as ROUX, left, with Danny Gavigan and Helen Pafumi far left)

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Joe Brack as BASIL/PATIENT

Katy Carkuff as CORDAY, on bench.

We had a bit of a rolling opening for this show as we opened to the public and Fringe go-ers on Thursday, had a performance on Friday, then had most of our alumni and special guests on Saturday.  I would have thought that after 2 previews and 2 regular performances, my nerves would have subsided, but Saturday night still had me all nervy.   Even after 12 productions, 6 of which I have directed, I am still every bit as pins-and-needles on these opening nights.  You have 4-5 weeks where it’s just you, the cast, and various production teammates in the rehearsal room and no matter how much you anticipate the audience seeing the show, nothing prepares you.  I try to drill the idea that certain moments must be played to the audience and continually remind the actors and designers where people will be sitting, but it’s those first nights when you actually see and hear them in the room that can change everything.  The production had felt so private and intimate when it was just the small group and here we are, opening our doors and inviting all these people in to see what we have done.

Jonathon Church, as SADE, with cabbage as…Mr. Cabbage.

At first, I find myself watching the people in the audience more than the show.  Seeing how they react, what they look at, what they respond to.  Inevitably, there is always a moment of “why did they laugh at that?  Should it be funny?” Or even the moments that were funny to the cast 4 weeks ago resurface and remind us of its humor.  After that, I am able to relax somewhat and start prepping for certain moments, hoping they play the way we intended, hoping they delight/shock/titillate where needed.  Based on the crowds this weekend, I’d say we were very successful.  Thank you to all who have attended and have sent/said such kind words–they are much appreciated.

–Michael

From Richard:

“I went to the opening night of Forum Theatre’s production of 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 — better known as Marat/Sade — in DC tonight.

Bottom line: This production of Peter Weiss’ play is miraculous.

Let’s start with the handicap: Marat/Sade is a quintessentially 1960s play. Playwright Peter Weiss hijacked the continuing immediacy of the French Revolution in post-1945 politics (with more than a nod to Georg Buchner’s 1835 play Danton’s Death). Just check out the movie based on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s staggeringly brilliant 1967 production of the play — all atom bombs and sexual revolution.

But director Michael Dove re-imagines this play so wonderfully in the Forum production, however, that you will (at least for the moment) forget the RSC version. Where RSC director Peter Brook went for anarchic sex and apocalypse, Dove angles for something more tangible and contemporary: madness, sensuality and war.

In 2008, the easy route for a director of Marat/Sade would be to angle for the stagecraft and song of the play: Armageddon as cabaret. And the actors who carry the music of this production — Jesse Terrill (who wrote dazzling new music for this staging), Barbara Papendorp, Lisa Lias, Colin Smith, Michael Grew, Ashley Ivey, Colin Smith and Emre Izat — skilfully inhabit the songs and placards that Weiss writes into the play.

For me, however, the center of the play is the fierce dialectic between Marat (Danny Gavigan) and the Marquis de Sade (Jonathon Church). Dove’s version foregrounds this bitter conflict, and uses it as the engine of the play, enlisting the animating energy embodied in the pivotal roles of Charlotte Corday (Katy Carcuff), Simonne Evrard (Helen Parfumi) and the rabble-rousing priest Jacques Roux (Eric Messner) to spur it along. (Corday’s assassination of Marat is downright sexy.)

The danger of doing Marat/Sade in 2008 is a nostalgie de la boue — leaning on Bobby Kennedy and mutual assured destruction and a Europe where revolution is taking the barricades against the bourgeoisie. Forum’s Marat/Sade scrolls forward to an America where war and religion and history are contested categories. The questions that this Marat/Sade poses are worth pondering. The Forum production pushes forward in all directions — the futility of revolution is (almost) fun; assassination is as sexual as it is brutal, and politics is a carousel of sensual brutality.”

What you may not be aware of, is that only a couple of weeks earlier the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned within the Bastille. He was transfered days before the Bastille was stormed.  The story goes that on July 2, 1789, Sade called out of his window to the crowd that was growing at the entrance of the Bastille. “They are killing the prisoners in here,” he called out, attempting to incite the people below.

Want to celebrate the storming of the Bastille? The Washington Post has a listing of local events where you can celebrate all things revolutionary and French. Then join us later this week as we begin performances of Marat/Sade to see the affects of the revolution and view for yourself Sade’s abilities to incite the people.