Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud was our focused experimental practitioner for this terms work. Artaud is considered among the most influential figures in the evolution of modern drama theory. Antonin Artaud associated himself with Surrealist writers, artists, and experimental theatre groups in Paris during the 1920's. When political differences resulted in his break from the Surrealists, he founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Together they hoped to create a forum for works that would radically change French theater. Artaud, especially, expressed disdain for Western theatre of the day, panning the ordered plot and scripted language his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas, and he recorded his ideas in such works as Le Theatre de la cruaute and The Theatre and Its Double. Most critics believe that Artaud's most noted contribution to drama theory is his "theatre of cruelty," an intense theatrical experience that combined elaborate props, magic tricks, special lighting, primitive gestures and articulations, and themes of rape, torture, and murder to shock the audience into confronting the base elements of life. I feel that this element of Artaud's work was highly reflected in our group piece. We highlighted many taboo subjects of the life and the world and encapsulated this is our performance trios especially. Although Artaud's theatre of cruelty was not widely embraced, his ideas have been the subject of many essays on modern theatre, and many writers continue to study Artaud's concepts. Artaud's creative abilities were developed, in part, as a means of therapy during the artist's many hospitalizations for mental illness. His work was sinister and his addiction to opium reflected within his work, the obscene ideas and extensive interpretations were often a product of his hallucinations.