Marat Sade
Fitting In
Adelaide Centre For The ARTS
Thurs 29 March
season ended


I think that the folks running the acting school at the Adelaide Centre for the ARTS should go down to the Burger King and give themselves a shake. Director Paul Peers' 'Marat Sade' follows a long line of productions at this institution where the emphasis doesn't seem to be on the quality of performance. As before, there are simply more actors that parts - even in this script - and that means that some poor student has to hold a wheelchair all night, or another wears a constant scowl and stomps around like a demented bouncer. There are a dozen directors in Adelaide who could put on a dozen shows at the centre and give each student a fair crack.

Now I'll admit that playing an insane post-revolutionary early 19th Century French person performing a character in a play within a play written to draw parallels with the early 1960s is a difficult study, but I did not believe a single word spoken in over two hours. Acting is not acting outrageously or choosing a characterisation and sticking to it like glue. While Peers beautifully managed a menagerie of cacophony, there is only so much repetitive hand wringing, grimacing, shouting, simulated sex and wild-eyed abandon before tedium steps in. Manic compulsive disorders are death on stage, and the monologues by Marat and Sade drifted overhead like clouds from which you guess an interpretation.

While the program claims to be a production of the graduating actors, and technical production and design students, the lighting plot and the rather brilliant design were by the staff. No other design credits, or any sound credits, were given. Even the program cover - sadly lacking a by-line to the playwright Peter Weiss - was designed by a staff member. It just doesn't look like the students are given a go.

David Grybowski