Madame de Sade

SYNOPSIS

Madame de Sade

Madame de Sade is the third of four plays to be staged in the West End by the ambitiously creative Donmar Warehouse team during their one-year residency at the Wyndham Theatre on Charing Cross Road. Running from 13 March 2009 to 23 May 2009, the play stars Dame Judi Dench in a moving and shocking tale about her relationship, and the relationships of five other women, with the debauched Marquis de Sade. The show is directed by Michael Grandage, whose artistic leadership brings passion and depth to the retelling of this original play by Japanese playwright, Yukio Mishima. The Wyndham Theatre will run both matinee and evening performances of Madame de Sade throughout the run.

Madame de Sade - the story

Our play begins in the decaying decadence of aristocratic Paris shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution. The Marquis de Sade - a man…some might say a 'monster'…finds himself incarcerated in the Bastille for lurid acts of blood-soaked perversion. Six women - all with a connection to Sade, and all with contrasting beliefs and experiences of the man - tell of their relationships with the Marquis. Among them is Renee, Sade's staunchly devoted wife, who defends Sade without question, much to her mother's disgust and despite the charges he faces.

As the play unfolds the audience has built for them the character of the Marquis, complete with all the complexities that made him the father of 'sadism'. But it is not through the Marquis that the story is told. Instead it is the carefully crafted dialogue of the six women who wait to hear the Marquis's fate. It is their stories and their interactions with each other that bring the Marquis de Sade to life.    

Yukio Mishima

Madame de Sade was written in 1965 by Japanese playwright Yukio Mishima. Its controversial subject matter and shock value caused uproar at the time in Japan. The original authoring was in Mishima's native Japanese language, and so the play had to be translated into English. It is now performed the world over and is widely recognised as Mishima's finest work.

Parallels have been drawn between the dramatic backdrop for the play - France hurtling headlong into revolution - and Mishima's state of mind at the time. Five years after writing Madame de Sade, Yukio Mishima sensationally committed ritualistic suicide, very publicly, in an attempt, it is thought, to revive the Japanese Samurai spirit. It was a need to revolt against the system, just as was the situation in France centuries earlier.  

The Donmar Warehouse Team

The Donmar Warehouse is a cutting edge 'not-for-profit' theatrical company operating in Covent Garden, London. Its productions over the last 15 years have developed a reputation for artistic excellence - and have helped showcase new talent to the much larger West End theatres. In working with the Wyndham Theatre the Donmar team hope to bring their work to the attention of a wider audience. With Dame Judi Dench taking a lead role in Madame de Sade their mission could well be successful.

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