Rape, Incest, Murder! the Marquis de Sade on Stage Volume Three - Asylum Plays

This is volume 3 of 3. Volume 3 presents Sade's plays and occasional verse written at the Charenton Asylum during the reign of Napoleon. The lunatic asylum provided Sade with a creative freedom that allowed him not only to conceive his most innovative and original work, but to stage it as well, using actors from the asylum and the professional theatre. The violence and eroticism of Sade's infamous novels continue to be present in the plays, to such a degree that the asylum directors considered Sade's theatre to be a dangerous threat to the inmates. "[I]t is at the theatre rather than somewhere else that we must revive the almost extinguished flame of the love that every Frenchman owes his country; there is where he'll be convinced of the dangers that would exist for him should he fall back into the hands of tyranny. He'll carry home the enthusiasm and teach it to his family and its effects will be so much more durable, so much more passionate than the momentary inspirations of a newspaper article or proclamation because at the theatre, he learns the lesson by example, and he remembers it." The Marquis de Sade