Antonin Artaud

Birth: 4th September 1896. Death: 4th March 1948

Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director. As a theatre practitioner of the 20th Century, Artaud believed that theatre should represent reality and therefore, affect the audience as much as possible. In order to fulfil this idea, he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound, movement and other performance elements. This was described as his "Theatre of Cruelty". Artaud held the greatest admiration for Eastern forms of Theatre, the Balinese in particular. He was is awe of the highly ritualised and explicit physicality of Balinese Dance performance, thereby advocating the "Theatre of Cruelty". Artaud stated that by "cruelty", he did not mean sadism or causing pain, but instead believed it to be a physical determination to shatter the false reality.

To Artaud, imagination was considered reality. He explored dreams, thoughts and delusions, concluding that they were no less real than the outside world. He saw suffering as an essential part of existence, denouncing  the degradation of civilisation, calling for an ecstatic loss of the "self". Artaud wanted to put the audience in the middle of the "spectacle", so they would be "engulfed and physically affected by it".

Artaud and the "Theatre of Cruelty"

As an artisan and prolific theatre practitioner, one of Artaud's most renowned principles was his "Theatre of Cruelty". The art form as he preferred to put it, had "been created in order to restore to the theatre, a passionate and convulsive conception of life". Evidently, in order to fully understand his theories and ideas with regards to "theatre making", one must first examine Artaud's various uses of the term "cruelty". It is employed metaphorically to describe the essence of human existence and its many mysteries. As a form of discipline, it is explained with regards to performance techniques. Artaud also described cruelty, as a "theatrical representation", aiming to place the audience member in the centre of the action, forcing them to engage with the performance on an instinctive level.

In a broader sense, Antonin Artaud was able to shape and change the way audiences perceived theatre, imposing on the subconscious mind and merging both dream and reality. As a director, he was able to make the audience feel uncomfortable by using both lighting and sound as a means to shaping and creating an experimental experience which placed its spectators under "painful" circumstances.


An example of the "Theatre of Cruelty"

The clip investigates the obscurity of Artaud's vision for the "Theatre of Cruelty". As a piece of artistic performance, the clip attempts to demonstrate the cruel and sadistic nature of "rape" through a selection of indistinct sounds, lighting and camera angles. This is meant as an experience of the senses that could keep an audience in a state of constant emotional excitement and uncertainty whilst placing them in a world that made them feel intimidated and conscientious. By doing this, the audiences themselves would feel intimately involved in the circumstances of the performance.