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Quills | |
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Written by | Doug Wright |
Directed by | Howard Shalwitz |
Date premiered | 3 November 1995 |
Place premiered | New York Theatre Workshop |
Original language | English |
Subject | moral nihilism, atheism, sadism, pornography |
Genre | Drama |
Setting | 1807 France |
Quills is a 1995 play written by American playwright Doug Wright. The critically acclaimed work is based on the final days of the Marquis de Sade and was directed by Howard Shalwitz. It first opened at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1995 and ran from November 3 to December 22. Wright received a Obie Award for Best Playwright. [1] [2] He later adapted it into the 2000 feature film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman.
The play set in 1807 during the Reign of Terror as a part of the French Revolution centers around the writings and final days of the controversial author and libertine the Marquis de Sade portrayed by Rocco Sisto who earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance.
The play revolves around the Marquis de Sade who is imprisoned at the insane asylum Charenton. There he continues write and due to the vivacious and curious young laundry maid, Madeleine LeClerc, he is able to secretly publish them through her. The Marquis has daily spirited debates involving morality and atheism with the Catholic priest Abbé de Coulmier. During his stay the conservative and brutal Dr. Royer-Collard, a newly appointed chief physician, battles with the Marquis at the behest of Renée Pélagie, the Marquis' wife. [3]
Character | New York Theatre Workshop 1995 | Feature film adaptation 2000 |
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Marquis de Sade | Rocco Sisto | Geoffrey Rush |
Abbé de Coulmier | Jefferson Mays | Joaquin Phoenix |
Madeleine Leclerc | Katy Selverstone | Kate Winslet |
Dr. Royer-Collard | Daniel Oreskes | Michael Caine |
Simone / Madame Royer-Collard | Katy Selverstone | Amelia Warner |
Monsieur Prouix | Kirk Jackson | Stephen Moyer |
Renée Pélagie | Lola Pashalinski | Jane Menelaus |
The production premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1995 running from November 3 through December 22. [4]
Critical reception for the play was positive. Vincent Canby of The New York Times raved about the direction and performances as well as it's text writing, "[Wright] successfully blends intentional archness, grotesque exaggeration and bold humor to create a theatrical experience of real wit". He added "Quills doesn't mean to be an epic. It's a theatrical entertainment that manages to be serious fun along the way." [5] Variety theatre critic Jeremy Gerard lavished praise on the production describing it as "sensational in every sense of the word...[it's] smirky, gross-out fun with a purpose. It’s an amazing show". He compared it to the likes of " Titus Andronicus by way of Sweeney Todd or Pulp Fiction by way of Carrie . [6]
Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1996 | Obie Award | Best Playwright | Doug Wright | Won | [7] |
Drama Desk Award | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Rocco Sisto | Nominated | [8] | |
In 2000 Wright adapted the project to the screen working with director Philip Kaufman. [9] The film was distributed by Fox Searchlight and starred Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, and Michael Caine. [10] The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival to critical acclaim [11] and later named the Best Film at the National Board of Review. [12] Wright was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and the film went on to receive three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design. [13] [14]
Quills is a 2000 period film directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from the Obie award-winning 1995 play by Doug Wright, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, Quills re-imagines the last years of the Marquis's incarceration in the insane asylum at Charenton. It stars Geoffrey Rush as de Sade, Kate Winslet as laundress Madeleine "Maddie" LeClerc, Joaquin Phoenix as the Abbé de Coulmier, and Michael Caine as Dr. Royer-Collard.
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss. The work was first published in German.
Lewis Jefferson Mays is an American actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, a Helen Hayes Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, two Drama Desk Awards, two Outer Critics Circle Awards and three Obie Awards.
Charenton was a lunatic asylum founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Wright first earned acclaim earning the Obie Award for Best Playwright for his darkly satirical play Quills (1995) about the final days of the French sadist and author Marquis de Sade. He later adapted it into the 2000 film of the same name earning a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. He went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in Broadway debut play I Am My Own Wife (2004).
Patrick George Magee was a Northern Irish actor. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, sometimes called "Beckett's favourite actor," as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade.
Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often focuses on the experience of working-class people, particularly working-class people who are Black. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice: in 2009 for her play Ruined, and in 2017 for her play Sweat. She was the first woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times.
Ruben Santiago-Hudson is an American actor, playwright, and director who has won national awards for his work in all three categories. He is best known for his role of Captain Roy Montgomery from 2009 to 2011 on ABC's Castle. In November 2011, he appeared on Broadway in Lydia R. Diamond's play Stick Fly. In 2013, he starred in the TV series Low Winter Sun, a police drama set in Detroit.
Alex Timbers is an American writer and director and the recipient of Tony, Golden Globe, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and London Evening Standard Awards, as well as two OBIE and Lucile Lortel Awards. He also received the 2019 Drama League Founder's Award for Excellence in Directing and the 2016 Jerome Robbins Award for Directing. He was nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award. For his work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Timbers won a 2021 Tony Award for Best Director of a Musical.
Annie Baker is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017.
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1967 British film adaptation of Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade. The screen adaptation is directed by Peter Brook, and originated in his theatre production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The English version was written by Adrian Mitchell from a translation by Geoffrey Skelton.
Antoine-Athanase Royer-Collard was a French physician and psychiatrist. He was a younger brother to philosopher Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763–1845).
Stephen Karam is an American playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays Sons of the Prophet, a comedy-drama about a Lebanese-American family, and The Humans were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012 and 2016, respectively. The Humans won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, and Karam wrote and directed a film adaptation of the play, released in 2021.
The Flick is a play by Annie Baker that received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting. The Flick premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2013.
Rachel Chavkin is an American stage director best known for directing the musicals Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 and Hadestown, receiving nominations for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for both and winning for Hadestown in 2019.
Samuel D. Hunter is an American playwright living in New York City.
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Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 Tony Award, Best Direction of a Musical for the musical Violet and the 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here.
Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. Having studied at Cornell University and Juilliard School he became known for directing both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He has received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, a Tony nomination for Best Director of a Play, and nominations for four Drama Desk Awards.
Michael R. Jackson is an American playwright, composer, and lyricist, best known for his musical A Strange Loop, which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical. He is originally from Detroit.