Artauds Theater of Cruelty

Introduction During the early 1930s, the French dramatist and actor Antonin Artaud put forth a theory for a Surrealist theatre called the Theatre of Cruelty. Based on ritual and fantasy, this form of theatre launches an attack on the spectators' subconscious in an attempt to release deep-rooted fears

Theatre of Cruelty usually minimizes the text by emphasizing : screams, inarticulate cries, symbolic gestures.

Antonin Artaud Sept. 4, March 4, 1948

French dramatist, poet, actor, and theoretician of the Surrealist movement who attempted to replace the bourgeois classical theatre with his theatre of cruelty, a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself.

Early Years Artauds infancy was a difficult one At the age of four, Antonin had a severe attack of meningitis He also suffered from neuralgia, stammering and severe bouts of depression.

He was institutionalized by his parents in a sanatorium for five years, during which time he read the works of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Poe

In 1920, Artaud moved to Paris and tried to publish some of his poems He sent his Surrealist poetry L'Ombilic des limbes (1925; Umbilical Limbo) and Le Pèse-nerfs (1925; Nerve Scales) to the influential critic Jacques Rivière, thus beginning their long correspondence

He studies acting in Paris and made his debut in Aurélien Lugné-Poë's Dadaist-Surrealist Théâtre de l'Oeuvre. Expelled from the Surrealist movement when he co-founded Théâtre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac. (they ran this theater together for two years, from ). He produced and directed original works, as well as pieces by Claudel and Strindberg

Artaud also developed a passion for cinema He wrote the script for the first Surrealist film, The Seashell and the Clergyman, directed by Germaine Dulac. The film is about a clergy man who, obsessed with a generals woman, has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.

Artaud and his Theater of Cruelty did not achieve popularity during his lifetime

At the film's premier, writer Antonin Artaud, who was obviously not pleased by what director Germain Dulac did to his screenplay, shouted at the screen insulting her as a cow. The British Board of Film Censors banned this film in the UK in 1927, saying, "This film is so obscure as to have no apparent meaning. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable."

Artaud also acted in several movies He played Marat in Abel Gance's film Napoléon (1927) and appeared as a friar in Carl Dreyer's classic film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928).

In 1938, Artaud published The Theatre and Its Double, the most important of his works This book contained the two manifestos of the Theater of Cruelty. In his book The Theatre and Its Double, Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre

Final Years Artaud was committed to a psychiatric hospital from 1937 to 1946

Antonin Artaud's final work was "To Have Done With The Judgment Of God. The work was recorded in the studios of the French Radio at the end of 1947 Artaud died month later because he was disappointed from his work.

In January 1948, Artaud was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. He died shortly afterwards on March 4, 1948

Quote The truth of life lies in the impulsiveness of matter. The mind of man has been poisoned by concepts. Do not ask him to be content, ask him only to be calm, to believe that he has found his place. But only the madman is really calm. The truth of life lies in the impulsiveness of matter. The mind of man has been poisoned by concepts. Do not ask him to be content, ask him only to be calm, to believe that he has found his place. But only the madman is really calm.

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