Reviews

Quills by Doug Wright

jennystout21's review

challenging dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

When a priest and a doctor try to curtail the writings of the sadistic Marquis de Sade, the French nobleman finds creative--and disgusting--ways to get his pornographic tales published. A play about censorship, power, and violence.

a_r_e_l_i_c's review against another edition

5.0

I could read this play everyday of my life, and still that would not be enough. Recommended to all non-anally retentive intellectuals with a sense of humour.

Here's the synopsis found on the back of this edition of the play (Since it's not included above):

Spoiler

Doctor Royer-Collard, head of Charenton Asylum, is visited by Renee Pelagie, wife of the asylum's most notorious inmate, the Marquis de Sade. Furious that her husband's sadomasochistic pornography has tarnished her reputation, she offers the Doctor any amount of money, if only her husband can be kept from writing. After confiscating the Marquis' quills and paper, the Abbe de Coulmier is surprised to find lascivious new stories circulating in public. The source? A lust young seamstress named Madeleine has been smuggling material out of the asylum. Immediately, the Abbe bars the girl from seeing the Marquis, but ever resourceful, the Marquis pens his stories on his bedclothes in wine, blood and worse. Driven to a fury, the Abbe strips bare the Marquis and his cell, leaving nothing but stone and straw. Undaunted, the Marquis devises a fantastic plan to whisper his stories from lunatic to lunatic, until Madeleine can pen them down - but the last lunatic, in whose cell Madeleine crouches, mutilates and kills the girl in response to the Marquis' grisly tale. A riot ensues, nearly destroying the asylum, and as the second act unfolds, the Abbe is driven to increasingly desperate acts to silence the Marquis: the removal of his hands, feet, genitals, and eventually his beheading. Wracked by guilt, the once humane but now murderous and sexually deviant Abbe is committed to his own asylum where he finds himself crying out for a paper and pen with which to record his own newly arisen perversions. In the last scene, the boxes containing the body parts of the Marquis tremble with pleasure. One hand snakes loose from it's box...and begins to write.

olivetree614's review

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Jesus CHRIST THAT WAS WEIRD

dkrane's review against another edition

3.0

It's a lot of fun. Pales next to Marat/Sade.

saydenie's review against another edition

5.0

I've wanted to read or see this play because I've loved the film version for years. The play is a bit different and I really love that they added elements of Marat/Sade to the movie that are not in the play. However, I love how the play works as both intellectual melodrama and an amazing piece of Grand Guignol. I now dream of putting this play on, though it would require some rather inventive staging.

zsprainer's review against another edition

4.0

as part of t he 2015 reading challange, category: A Play

getlitwithmegan's review

4.0

"We eat, we shit, we kill and we die."

cmonique5's review

dark funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75