Madame de Sade
Wyndhams
New Boy
Trafalgar Studio
In the 1960s Mishima wrote a play about the Marquis de Sade. What’s it like? It’s like this. A Greek tragedy consisting entirely of choral speeches performed on the radio. The naughty nobleman’s wife and her family are assembled on stage, along with a pair of sidekicks, one a tart, the other a nun, and through the testimony of these blushing womenfolk we hear the details of his rapacious career. Static, word-heavy and often boring, the play is far from a disaster. That de Sade never appears barely matters. He’s in prison, in court, in hiding, in Sardinia, in a hay-loft, in prison again. Finally, after two decades of blood-soaked fornication, he’s at the front porch. Will he come in? No, says the maidservant, he’s so fat he can’t get through the door-frame.
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