Download Antonin Artaud, a legendary figure who was capable of composing

Angela Chen 9843005
段馨君
Theatre Performing Art
2009.11.23
Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty
Antonin Artaud, a legendary figure who was capable of composing poems, doing
painting and film making with great intensity, was of great importance by directing
and promoting the theatre of cruelty, a creepy and terror-stricken drama style that
made big strike to the public twenty years after his death.
Though the amount of his
dramatic pieces remained small:《Les Cenci》, a script about the down fall of a duke’s
family owing to his immoral killings and ruthless behavior and《Theatre and Its
Double》, a theatrical instruction book indicated Artaud’s thinking in every aspect of a
theatre, the power Artaud brought up to overthrow traditional theatres was widely
spread and greatly influenced modern theatre workers.
Artaud was tortured by meningitis when he was 5, and the abuse of opium plus
the continual psyche treatment receiving at a sanatorium caused uneasiness to his
mental stage. He went through a lot of misery and painful experiences, however, it
was considered to be his long endurance over both mental and physical suffering that
opened the gateway to his use of cruel and controversial methods, which gave
audiences goose bumps and deep unpleasant sensations of feelings.
In Antonin Artaud’s theatrical instruction work,《Theatre and Its Double》, he
abandoned conventional techniques which he regarded as deathly and indifferent that
impressed the society into a stage of stiffness.
Theatre should be, in his opinion, a
place loaded with an abundance of tempo, voices, languages, echoes, gestures and
symbols combined and manipulated together that makes the audiences shiver in
order to invoke the very deep emotions and violent/ sexual desire hidden beneath
their moral surfaces. (Antonin Artaud. Theatre and Its Double. P7~9)
What’s more, he preferred ancient totem and eastern culture, whose drama
was about myth and religion that he thought capable of achieving metaphysics.
(Antonin Artaud. Theatre and Its Double. P76~78)
Artaud thinks what a theatre
needed was to give spectators uncomfortable feelings hence to make them aware and
cleanse themselves, and the reason why Artaud hated western theatre was, obviously,
the abuse of human and psychological expression which locked away the possibility
of abnormity and craziness.
In his book, Artaud implied theatre as plague; the very disease created so much
pain and screams to a person yet only damaged his brain and lungs, the
representatives of one’s intelligence and thinking.
“Theatre as plague is
beneficial,” he wrote, “because it force people to face themselves directly without
masks.
It reveals lies, cowardice, vileness, fakeness and awakes the dark inertia
humans don’t know that has sunk into their marrow.” (Antonin Artaud. Theatre
and Its Double. P30) Another comparison is theatre as alchemy.
Both of these two
comparisons, in Artaud’s perspective, were developed from some basic foundations.
He called them as “invented art.” whose real purpose weren’t to focus on
themselves, but rather, on the process of spiritual sublimation. (Antonin Artaud.
Theatre and Its Double. P49)
In《Theatre and Its Double》, all the words, similes, metaphors and description
Artaud wrote with sweat and blood showed how big the capability of a man could be.
He used wild ideas to conflict with the old ones because he cared whether the
“real stuff” could achieve the soul or not. (Stephen Barber. The Screaming Body.
P.5~7)
It was his passion and love for theatre that made him so strong and
stimulated even in deep poverty.
Although during his lifetime, Artaud didn’t succeed nor become famous, but just
like Van Gogh, he achieved high status in people’s mind after death.
The theatre of
cruelty, which he brought to life now remains in the shades around the corner,
continues to give chills to the society whenever a person is touched by it.
References
Antonin Artaud, 劉俐譯注 劇場及其複象 台北市: 聯經，2003 P.7~9, 30, 49,
76~78
Stephen Barber. The Screaming Body. Paris: Creation Books 1999 P.5~7