Antonin Artaud: The Theatre Of Cruelty

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The theatre theorist I have chosen as the foundation for my solo theatre piece is Antonin Artaud. After viewing a short video of Artaud’s theory in action I was instantly attracted to his ideas regarding theatre and thus decided to explore his work further in depth. Artaud had “expressed disdain for Western theater of the day, panning the ordered plot and scripted language his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas.” I found his work terrifying in a way but it was also very refreshing to see theatre that swayed away from speech and instead used other aspects to bring about meaning and purpose in a dramatic work. Born in Marseille, France, on September 4, 1896, Artaud worked as an actor also participating in the Surrealist Movement in Paris as a writer. This was a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and it is best known for its visual artworks and writings. Here he constructed the idea of a Theatre of Cruelty. Although Artaud eventually parted ways with the ideas of surrealism, this movement helped to shape his later theories on the Theatre of Cruelty. Artaud discovered that theatre is something that should be inspiring and which should wake us up internally. Both …show more content…

I found that through this I would be able to gain a certain reaction from the audience, a feeling of discomfort that would echo on later as an incredibly eerie idea. I felt that this related well with Artaud’s ideas, seeing as the audience discomfort was an important idea within the theory, and I found that this combined well with my aim to the

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