Has Carolina Actors’ Studio Theatre gone crazy? No, but its newest production (with a really long title), Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, is devoted to lunatics. This play-within-a-play, which can be shortened to the titled Marat/Sade (you know, so you can remember it), was written by Peter Weiss of Germany in 1963 and made into a film adaptation in 1967. It revolves around a prisoner at Charenton Asylum who was allowed to write and direct plays — including one set during the French Revolution and the 1793 assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — for patients to perform in for therapy. Let’s just hope they don’t really have a knife — that is how Marat was assassinated — because that would be scary. Continues through Nov. 21. $20-$40. Oct. 22-24, 8 p.m.; Oct. 29-31, 8 p.m.; Nov. 5-7, 8 p.m.; Nov. 12-14, 8 p.m.; Nov. 19-21, 8 p.m. Carolina Actors’ Studio Theatre, 1118 Clement Ave. 704-455-8542. www.nccast.com.
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2009.
