Unrest swells at the Asylum of Charenton. After years of confinement Marquis de Sade has been given the liberty to stage one of his plays as a recreational activity for the other inmates. De Sade proceeds to harness the neurotic, exposed energy of his co-patients into a story about the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat in which they are to play all the roles. Not long ago Marat’s death in the hands of Charlotte Corday had catalysed a bloodbath, the reverberations of which are soon to be felt by the Charenton walls.
“The revolution came and went,
And unrest was replaced by discontent.”