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Synopsis Against her mother's wishes, Renee remains vehemently devoted to her husband, the Marquis de Sade, the notorious aristocrat imprisoned in the Bastille for his lurid escapades and licentious behaviour.
Following the lavish praise and multiple awards that greeted both Ivanov and Twelfth Night, the hotly-anticipated third instalment of the Donmar's season at the Wyndham's theatre opened to critics last night (18 March 2009, previews from 13 March).
Directed by Michael Grandage (who also helmed Ivanov and Twelfth Night) and starring an all-female cast including Judi Dench, Rosamund Pike, Frances Barber and Deborah Findlay, Madame de Sade centres on five women affected by the infamous debauchery of the Marquis de Sade, including his wife and mother. It continues to 23 May and is followed by Jude Law's turn as Hamlet, also directed by Grandage.
“A severe disappointment” was the verdict of Whatsonstage.com's Michael Coveney, and most of his critical peers were in agreement. Having enjoyed so many plaudits in recent months, this morning's largely poor notices mark something of a crash back down to earth for Michael Grandage. It wasn't all bad, a few critics highlighting some strong performances and the “stunning” design elements, but the conclusion of most was that no amount of impressive costuming and video projections could disguise a play deemed by the Guardian's Michael Billington “an example of the Higher Tosh”. Third time not so lucky for the Donmar.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (two stars) - “The bubble hasn’t exactly burst over the Donmar West End season, but Madame de Sade … is a severe disappointment following the delights of Ivanov and Twelfth Night … The static nature of the debates by de Sade’s womenfolk ... makes for a surprisingly sedate and superficial evening, with none of the revolutionary excess or unbridled sensuality you’d expect (or hope for) in a show about the debauched Marquis … It’s been widely seen across Europe, notably in a production by Ingmar Bergman. This pedigree may have duped Grandage into thinking he’d found an ideal vehicle for his cast of lovely ladies in the Donmar jamboree. The result is an elegant, beautifully costumed drama of no guts or passion whatsoever.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) - “Michael Grandage's success has been founded on his directorial brilliance and impeccable taste. But I fear his judgment may have wobbled in choosing to revive this discussion-drama written by Yukio Mishima ... The acting and staging are breathtaking but the play itself is an example of the Higher Tosh. Mishima's aim was clearly to write an elevated, Racine-like drama about the nature of passion, so he assembles a group of women all associated with the Marquis de Sade. He then has them debate, over three acts stretching from the Marquis's arraignment for poisoning and sodomy in 1772 to his release from prison in 1790, their attitudes to his punitive philosophy … As a piece of son et lumière, Grandage's production is stunning. It's just the play that strikes me as decadent romanticism.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (two stars) - “Michael Grandage has proved he can turn just about any old play into gold, but last night Yukio Mishima’s Madame de Sade resisted even his director’s alchemy. It’s lead, gilded lead, highly decorated lead, but still lead. And that’s despite the hard work of Judi Dench, who has to be almost permanently outraged as the mother-in-law of the imprisoned Marquis de Sade, and Rosamund Pike, who can’t be blamed for resembling an earnest schoolgirl doggedly adjusting to larks in the dorm … Again and again I felt I was hearing the Mishima who liked to pose for the camera as St Sebastian, was photographed with a hatchet jutting from his head, and ended up ritually disembowelling himself. There’s something creepy about his fascination with sadism and masochism - and something very creepy about Madame de Sade.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph - “Yukio Mishima's deeply dodgy play about the Marquis de Sade, first staged in 1965, five years before the Japanese writer made a similarly botched job of his own ritual suicide, proves fit only for pretentious masochists. It's pure theatrical torture … Dench must know she's landed herself in a dud because she isn't nearly as fluent with her lines as one might expect – but then in Donald Keene's laborious translation they are hardly memorable. The poor woman is also landed with a series of ridiculously elaborate frocks and wigs that make her look like one of those crinoline dolls Blackpool landladies use to cover up the spare lavatory roll … Pike is one of the most beautiful and intelligent of British actresses but her constant speeches of selfless devotion to her vile husband prove just as tedious as Dench's haughty disapproval.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (three stars) - “When it comes to straight plays, or even bent ones, few more weird or perverse than Yukio Mishima’s Madame de Sade can have hit the staid West End stage this century … Anyone, though, who hopes the play’s title serves as a coded come-on for sado-masochists in search of a bad time, complete with scenes of sexual degradation performed with titillating realism, will be cruelly disappointed. The impurity of Madame de Sade lies in its thoughts not its deeds … The play’s weirdness - its refusal to deal adequately with problems posed by sado-masochism - does not disguise the fascination of the questions it implicitly raises. Why is it now as in the 18th century usually women who succumb to masochism at the hands of sadistic men like de Sade?”
The bubble hasn’t exactly burst over the Donmar West End season, but Madame de Sade, by the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, translated by Donald Keene, is a severe disappointment following the delights of Ivanov and Twelfth Night.
Michael Grandage has directed all three productions - and will soon start work on the fourth, Jude Law's Hamlet - and has certainly pulled out the expected design stops: Christopher Oram’s silvered, eighteenth century corridor is gorgeously lit by Neil Austin and bathed in sweet sounds of foreboding (but why?) by Adam Cork.
But the static nature of the debates by de Sade’s womenfolk - his wife, her sister and their mother, as well as a lascivious countess (Frances Barber) and a naughty nun (Deborah Findlay, not naughty enough) - makes for a surprisingly sedate and superficial evening, with none of the revolutionary excess or unbridled sensuality you’d expect (or hope for) in a show about the debauched Marquis.
We never meet him, in fact, as he’s imprisoned in the Bastille on charges of poisoning and sodomy. The three short acts – played without an interval – stretch from 1772 to 1790, require Madame de Sade, played by Rosamund Pike, to move from a spirited defence of her husband’s beliefs and behaviour to a more independent view.
Pike does this with much spirit but little vocal variation or subtlety, while Judi Dench as her outraged mother, Madame de Montreuil, mostly stands around looking like a Joshua Reynolds portrait arranging her face in expressions of distaste, disapproval and downright disgust.
It’s hard to get quite so worked up oneself, wishing rather that we’d have a more celebratory, less cerebral, account of little sister’s (Fiona Button) seduction by the old goat in Venice, or a more practical demonstration than mere whip cracking of the countess’s sexual predilections. Jenny Galloway huffs and puffs with all the impatience of someone who can’t decide whether she wants to join in or go home.
Mishima - who killed himself by ritual disembowelment in 1970, wrote the play in 1965 and it’s been widely seen across Europe, notably in a production by Ingmar Bergman. This pedigree may have duped Grandage into thinking he’d found an ideal vehicle for his cast of lovely ladies in the Donmar jamboree. The result is an elegant, beautifully costumed drama of no guts or passion whatsoever.
Brilliantly performed and beautifully designed. The clunky academic translation is not alone capable of ruining the whole. It is one of the best shows i have seen for a long time. A privelege to see those divine actresses all onstage together. Funnily enough the only Donmar turkey has only women in it. Its been a long time coming the blow to Grandage's ego but it had to come and the critics have finally found a way to do it. You have to like minimum action/all talking French style plays (which I do)... it will be interesting to see if the critics can hack Mirren in Phedre. Or maybe Ted Hughes has put all the action back onstage to satisfy British bloodthirstiness contrary to the tradition. We'll see... - davethecat
22 May 09
A play that seems to have got better and better the longer it's gone on, the performances have settled down, and Rosamund Pike is absolutely sensational and emotionally moving. I'm glad I hadn't listened to earlier reviews but tried this for myself. - dgr1
21 May 09
Shudder at the the initial salacious exchanges; bored by the worn out ideas; the only play I have seen after which I couldn't applaud; to embarrassed to smile to a neighbour. I went to evensong at St Paul's afterwards and the psalm was restoring celebrations of flesh and strength.
- Alan J A
26 Apr 09
I learnt a very valuable lesson today, which was not to take what the reviews say at first hand. On the strength of the mauling this play received and coupled with Judi Dench's injury earlier in the run, I decided to give up my tickets for this play.
Today I was given another opportunity to see it and decided to accept the offer.
What a magnificent staging - the set, the costumes were absolutely wonderous.
The play starts well with Frances Barber perfectly cast and in very mischevious, delicious form. She is a delight to watch, especially when playing characters with a darker side as the Comtesse de Saint-Fond certainly posesses. There is fine inter-play with Deborah Findlays stright laced Baronesse De Simiane and then the wounded, anguished Madame De Montreuil played superbly by Judi Dench.
The sisters, Anne and Renee played by Fiona Button and Rosamund Pike are intriguing to watch in their pursuit of the Marquis who at first seems nothing more than a brut, vile man. But as the play goes on, these assumptions become less clear as Renee explains that the rose and snake live alongside each other in the same world. I am left wondering if their pursuit of this man and determination to do the right thing for him and by him is more about their strength of will than their weakness in this man's presence?
Beautifully acted by the whole company, it leaves plenty of pause for thought. It's all too easy to take these productions at face value. I am glad I did not today and feel rewarded by the experience. In future I shall make up my own mind, rather than relying too much on what others say. - Paul Wallis
25 Apr 09
Well, I suppose it was only time before we got the Donmar Turkey, but I didn't think it would be such a big turkey that it doesn't even fit in the oven. The ladies spend 100 minutes telling us about a play that is clearly happening offstage and sounds a lot more interesting than the one onstage. I feel really sorry for these fine actors having to go though this eight times a week for c.10 weeks. I make that 8000 excruciating minutes of turgid lifeless drama. Someone should put them out of their misery. - Gareth James
22 Apr 09
Well, it looked magnificent (all credit to Christopher Oram for that) and started out promisingly enough, but oh God did it go on! An afternoon snooze, as someone says here, maybe, but I can also vouch for an evening snooze too! Still it was great to see Francis Barber and Deborah Finley in action again who are always a delight to see. But the dame? She is becoming somewhat repetitive of late? Perhaps it's her age or maybe she's run out of ideas or maybe it's??? But a lack lustre performance from her I am afraid to report. Rosamund Pike, however, makes up for the lot by delivering a tour de force in the final scene. Yet it was still not enough to redeem the tedium of the piece. It's no wonder Yukio Mishima committed Hari Kari - if he hadn't done so I'm sure many would have gladly helped him to do so! A nice idea, but let down by a tedious script. Never mind it's been a great season and one which should have helped swell the Donmar's coffers for next year. - rds
21 Apr 09
Silly old Judi, perhaps she'll read the script before signing the next time. - coral
10 Apr 09
I cannot fault the acting, directing or scenery -- and the costumes were sumptuous. Sadly, though, I didn't think there was anything of interest in the play itself. I like to care about at least one of the characters I see on stage, but here I couldn't care less about any of them. And the tales of the sordid marquis's debauchery were frankly tedious, I thought. It's a great shame that such talented actors don't have better subject matter. I loved Ivanov and Twelfth Night, and have great hopes for Hamlet, but this one just didn't do it for me. - LDE
06 Apr 09
It’s 18th century France, 17 years before the Revolution, and in the crumbling splendour of a chateau, one extravagantly-gowned lady scandalises her sanctimonious friend with a scabrous account of Alphonse, Marquis de Sade. The themes of the sacred and profane are declared at once, and an impassioned debate unfolds as the world hurtles into revolt.
But this costume drama is more Perversity and Perversion than Pride and Prejudice. The conventional Madame de Montreuil connives to protect her daughters and her own good name from the corruption of the Marquis, while Renee, his wife, embraces his debasements with the fervour of a martyr. The rose and the snake exist in the same world, though one is beautiful and one repels.
The lives of the six women in the play are informed and controlled by their relationship to Alphonse, as though he were a god providing spiritual sustenance and judgement. They are not ciphers: they argue their complex cases with intellect, passion and conviction. Renee is persuasive; her mother is plausible, and their friends reach their predetermined resolutions as they lose their foothold in their society. In the dialectic, Mishima remains tantalisingly objective, challenging us to draw our own conclusions.
The play moves swiftly through three short acts, and at times I longed to slow it down to consider the arguments at greater length. It is vividly acted: Rosamund Pike astonishes as Renee, and Judi Dench provides an anguished portrait of a woman driven to desperate measures. It looks ravishing, with the attention to detail in lighting and sound that we know we can depend on from Michael Grandage.
Those who book for Dench rather than Mishima/Grandage surely get what they deserve, but I have been haunted by it since I saw it. - fredo
28 Mar 09
It's indicative of the drawing power of the Donmar 'brand' (and Judi Dench) that an unknown play by an obscure Japanese writer was virtually sold out in advance of the reviews. However, Michael Grandage has previously demonstrated that he can be occasionally fallible (The Cut, The Cryptogram, God of Hell) and Madame de Sade is a shocker. It's stunning to look at and beautifully acted but the endless speeches concerning the repetitive debauchery of the absent de Sade succeeded only in inducing an afternoon snooze for large portions of the audience. At the curtain call Dame Judi looked in considerable pain - possibly from her injured ankle but possibly because she's stuck in this awful play for several more weeks. - David Baxter
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