Second Skin Theatre is back with a vengeance thanks to the Marquis de Sade
By Sophie_RT | Sunday, October 21, 2012, 15:53
Second Skin Theatre returns to Stoke Newington after almost a year away, in which they took their first Stokey show, La Chunga, to the West End. This time they’re back with something even rawer, and – dare I say it? – even more devilishly delicious, just in time for Halloween.
An ‘intimate’ theatre in more ways than one, director Andy McQuade and his team have transformed the basement of White Rabbit Cocktail Club (formerly Baby Bathhouse) into a space in which the audience are nose-to-nose with the actors, for a thrilling sense of voyeurism that suits the play down to a T. Quills relives the tale of the Marquis de Sade’s incarceration in Charenton’s mental institute in the early 19th Century. His love of writing, eroticism and violence come together to cause problems for the authorities and his eccentric wife; and questions of mental illness, freedom of speech and human nature are played out on stage in this comic tragedy.
Lust, love, religion and authority are tangled in an honest, shocking and often hilarious portrayal of a world on the edge of meltdown. As the play progresses the characters – from the hardened asylum manager, through the devout priest, to the Marquis himself – all end up as shackled as each other, with each man struggling against his own subservience. Quills asks questions about a writer’s responsibility for a reader’s reaction, which feels particularly important following the recent debate around controversial publications by Nick Griffin and Charlie Hebdo.
The play runs for another three weeks, and has already attracted the attention of West End venues, so it may be joining La Chunga as a Stokey export. For those of you looking for something to do over Halloween that doesn’t involve trick or treating and/or dressing up as a pumpkin, then get yourself down to the dark depths of Church Street for a more adult way to prepare for witching hour.
Five stars.
