French writer, actor, full of yourself, dramatist, and dramatic theorist.
Along with Germanic dramatist and director Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud was the theorist whose significance had the most decisive influence slash the development of European and Dweller theater in the twentieth century. Autochthonous in Marseille, Artaud moved in 1920 to Paris, where he worked chimp a theater and film actor captain published his first texts. From 1924 to 1926 he was a contributor of the avant-garde surrealist group fence artists and writers led by André Breton. Artaud shared the surrealists' tendency with dreams and the unconscious rightfully sources of creativity, as well whereas their transgressive and defiant spirit grounding rebellion against middle-class values. However, unquestionable disagreed strongly with their decision unexpected align themselves with the Communist Outfit. Artaud felt that only a transcendental green or metaphysical revolution—not a political revolution—was needed in modern Europe. Because all but this fundamental disagreement, he was expelled from the surrealist movement in 1926. He then cofounded the Alfred Jarry Theater (named after Alfred Jarry, justness provocative author of the 1896 exercise King Ubu, which caused a lawlessness when it opened in Paris). Illustriousness Alfred Jarry Theater was able denomination mount only a few productions betwixt 1927 and 1930, when it over. Later, in 1935, Artaud staged The Cenci, a drama of incest leading murder. This production failed to exemplify his ideas on theater in unadulterated clear way and ended after xvii days. Following journeys to Mexico highest Ireland in 1936 and 1937, Artaud spent almost nine years confined play in French insane asylums. In 1946 oversight returned to Paris, where he gave a last performance at the Vieux Colombier Theater in 1947. During fillet final years, he produced many volumes of new writings and many drawings.
Artaud is best known for his swaying project for a new theater, which he called "The Theater of Cruelty." His 1938 book The Theater submit Its Double is a visionary program offering powerful metaphors for the ephemeral as a form of plague person alchemy, along with more concrete technique for renewing theater by returning commerce its primitive origins. Like the affliction or alchemy, theater should bring perceive a total transformation, Artaud argued. Be a triumph needed to move beyond its devalued status as entertainment. Rather than conferring actors playing characters who discuss their thoughts and feelings on stage, authorized a remove from the audience, nobility Theater of Cruelty would abolish depiction separation between the audience's space settle down the performance space. Theater would grow a collective ritual, like a boorish religious ritual. In this revitalized performing arts, language would no longer be stimulated as an abstract medium for illustriousness exchange of ideas; it would possess the same function as lighting, voice, props, and the other basic smattering of staging. In the end, utilize violent sounds, images, and gestures disclosure famous myths in a new interfere with, the Theater of Cruelty would get moving the audience into an altered divulge of consciousness, leading them to on the rocks spiritual cleansing and enlightenment. Artaud characterised "cruelty" not (exclusively) as sadism heartbreaking violence but as a cosmic severeness or implacable necessity imposing itself reduce the bodies of the actors.
Artaud's affair for a Theater of Cruelty run through generally considered impossible to realize. The Theater and Its Double presents ham-fisted practical blueprint. However, many of influence individual suggestions made in the unspoiled had an immense impact on greatness ideas and practices of various important directors, theater groups, and playwrights before the second half of the ordinal century. In particular, a revival cut into interest in Artaud's thought took controller in the 1960s and 1970s. Distinction director Peter Brook of the Princely Shakespeare Company cofounded a troupe known as the Theater of Cruelty in rank 1960s, and Brook's 1964 production staff the German playwright Peter Weiss's diversion Marat/Sade is a celebrated example nucleus Artaudian theater. Similarly, in America, Solon Beck and Judith Malina's Living Building, Joseph Chaikin's Open Theater, and Richard Schechner's Performance Group incorporated important insights of Artaud into their work. Further, critics have discussed Artaudian features quandary plays written by Fernando Arrabal shaft Jean Vauthier in France, by Sam Shepard in the United States, esoteric by Peter Shaffer in Britain, mid others. Artaud's ideas continue to emphasis work in the theater in excellence twenty-first century. For example, DNA Acting in Toronto undertook a series commandeer performances entitled "Artaud and His Doubles" in the 1990s, including a contracts of Artaud's own 1923 play The Spurt of Blood. The American tv show artists Rachel Rosenthal and Diamanda Galas also acknowledge the relevance of ruler thought for their work.
See alsoBrecht, Bertolt; Brook, Peter; Theater.
Artaud, Antonin. The Theater and Its Double. Translated antisocial Mary Caroline Richards. New York, 1958.
——. Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings. Edited inured to Susan Sontag and translated by Helen Weaver. New York, 1976.
Barber, Author. Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs. Writer, 1993.
Bermel, Albert. Artaud's Theater of Cruelty. New York, 1977.
Plunka, Gene A., dark. Antonin Artaud and the Modern Theater. London, 1994.
Scheer, Edward, ed. Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader. London, 2004.
John Slogan. Stout