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Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud
4th September 1896
Marseille, France
4 March 1948 aged 51 due to Intestinal Cancer
Paris, France
French
Studied at the Sacred Heart College
Theatre Director, Poet, Actor, Artist, Essayist
Theatre Cruelty
With Oliver Folaranmi & Rhys Marks
Youth Wave
Theatre of Cruelty
• Antonin Artaud was a member of the surrealist movement
in Paris during the 1920s, and was well known as an
essayist of avant-garde theatre. Much of the avant-garde
theatre developed in France from 1914-1939 can be seen
as a revolt against tradition.
• Deeply affected by the events of World War One, the artist
movement felt increasing their disbelief of the existing
societal structures that had allowed for global warfare.
• The Theatre of Cruelty is a method of theatre developed by
Antonin Artaud, in ‘The Theatre and its Double.’ Originally a
member of the surrealist movement, Artaud eventually
began to develop his own theatrical theories.
•This style of theatre is largely movement-based, Theatre of
Cruelty aimed to shock the senses of its audience,
sometimes using violent and confronting images that
appealed to the emotions. Text was given a reduced in
Artaud’s theatre, as dance and gesture became just as
powerful than the spoken word.
Theatre of Cruelty
• In his writings on the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud points to
definitions of both “theatre” and “cruelty” that are separate
from their colloquial meanings.
• For Artaud, theatre does not merely refer to a staged
performance before a passive audience. The theatre is a
practice, which “wakes us up. Nerves and heart,” and
through which we experience, “immediate violent action.”
• Similarly, cruelty does not refer to an act of emotional or
physical violence. According to scholar Nathan Gorelick,
“Cruelty is, more profoundly, the unrelenting agitation of a
life that has become unnecessary, lazy, or removed from a
compelling force. The Theatre of Cruelty gives expression to
everything that is ‘crime, love, war, or madness’ in order to
‘unforgettably root within us the ideas of perpetual conflict,
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