The piece is a scandal dealing with the scandal of one human being acting out his drives and desires, who wouldn’t accept “civilisation and its discontents”. The late work of the Japanese author Yukio Mishima was written in 1965 and performed with tremendous success also outside Japan.
The setting is in Madame de Montreuil’s salon, where the ladies take turns in referring to the Marquis de Sade whilst he is frequenting the brothels in Paris. The dialogues unfold the tensions between the women who put themselves – each in their own way – in relation to the Marquis, the absent centre. Indirectly, they relive his passions. “Behind the iciness there is an inkling of ardour set ablaze” reads the instruction of the playwright Mishima. De Sade preferred sharp-witted, strong women. Renée, the title character, has fought all her life for the release of her spouse, the Marquis de Sade, from prison. Her mother, however, defends the reality principle in the society of the time – the law and order of the Ancien Régime. She wants her daughter to leave the “monster”. The daughter, however, follows her husband on the path to find his own truth.
