Amazing! I hope I get to work on this someday. An eviscerating look at the morals of humankind. ( )

This play about the Marquis de Sade and his writings in prison is told from the standpoint of the administration of the asylum; in so doing, the author manages to turn the Marquis into an anti-hero, and the "good guys" protecting society from him into something worse than villains. The gore and violence they perpetrate just to keep him from writing pornographic obscenity is telling. They worry about the effect his writing will have on inmates and on society at large, without noticing that their own moralizing is having a very bad effect on them. The conclusion of the play almost seems to be "there is no God". The images of Satan in one of the late acts, disguised as the Marquis, are ambiguous - are they a vision or a dream? A truly nihilistic look at the human condition. ( )

An oh-so-good play (loosely) based on the life and writing of the Marquis de Sade. It was adapted into a movie which is also really, really awesome...but the ending in the play is so much more right on than the ending in the film. Violence, sex, religion, censorship, death. Quills has it all and isn't afraid to delve into the twisted human psyche. ( )