Actors - Antonin Artaud

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	Actors - Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud (September 4, 1896–March 4, 1948) was a playwright, actor, and director.

In his book Theatre and its Double, Artaud expressed his admiration for Eastern forms of theatre, particularly the Balinese Theatre. He admired Eastern theatre because of the codified, highly ritualized physicality of Balinese dance performance, and advocated what he called a "Theatre of Cruelty". By cruelty, he meant not sadism or causing pain, but rather a violent, physical determination to shatter the false reality which, he said, lies like a shroud over our perceptions. He believed that text had been a tyrant over meaning, and advocated, instead, for a theatre made up of a unique language halfway-between thought and gesture. He also believed that sexual activity, including masturbation, was harmful to the creative process and should be avoided if one hoped to achieve purity in one's art.

Antonin Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all expression is physical expression in space. Although he advocated a system of "social therapy" through theatre, Artaud was institutionalized for some time because he was considered insane.

:The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid." :– Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66

An outline of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

#Artaud had a pessimistic view of the world, but he believed that theatre could effect change. #Remove the audience from the everyday and use symbolic objects to work with the emotions and soul of the audience. #Attack the audience's senses through an array of technical methods and acting so that the audience would be brought out of their desensitisation and have to confront themselves. #Use the grotesque, the ugly and pain in order to confront an audience, thereby being cruel to them.

Biographical Information

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud was born in Marseille on September 4th, 1896. He died in Paris in 1948. Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine (little Anthony), and was among a long list of names which Artaud went by throughout his life. Although his mother had many children, only Antoine, his brother and his sister survived infancy. At the age of four, Antonin had a severe attack of meningitis. The virus gave Antonin a nervous, irritable temperament throughout adolescence. He also suffered from neuralgia, stammering and severe bouts of depression. Artaud's parents arranged a long series of sanatorium stays for their disruptive son, which were both prolonged and expensive. They lasted five years, with a break of two months, June and July 1916, when Artaud was conscripted into the army. He was discharged due to his self-induced habit of sleepwalking. During Artaud's "rest cures" at the sanatorium he read Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Poe. In May 1919 the director of the sanatorium, Dr. Dardel, perscribed opium for Artaud, precipitating a lifelong addiction to that and other drugs. In March 1920 Artaud moved to Paris. In November 1926 Artaud was expelled from the surrealist movement and also wrote his manifesto titled Manifesto for an Abortive Theatre.

Artaud cultivated a great interest in cinema as well, working in films such as Abel Gance's Napoleon in the role of Jean Paul Marat and Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc
as the monk Jean Massieu. Artaud's portrayal of Marat is a perfect example of melodrama in silent film. He used exaggerated movements to convey the fire of Marat's personality, a technique that he would employ later in the Theatre and its Double, as well as in his adaptation of The Cenci.

The 1930's saw the publication of The Theatre and Its Double, as well as the release of Artaud's only theatrical production: The Cenci. The Cenci was a commercial failure as the audience did not respond favorably to his Theatre of Cruelty. The production featured an odd assortment of sound effects and at one performance, Artaud played Count Cenci as a dog, coming on stage on all fours, barking his lines. After the production failed, Artaud received a grant to travel to Mexico where he was a guest lecturer. He also studied the Tarahumara and experimented with the drug peyote, recording his experiences which were later released in a volume called "The Peyote Dance". The content of this work closely resembles the poems of his later days, concerned primarily with the supernatural.

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Actors - Antonin Artaud

An outline of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

Biographical Information

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