Artauds Theater of Cruelty. Dhimonel Kolvani

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Artauds Theater of Cruelty.Dhimonel
Kolvani
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Antonin Artaud

• Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as
  Antonin Artaud (born September 4, 1896, in
  Marseille
• died March 4, 1948 in Paris) was a French
• playwright, poet, actor and director.
• Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine,
• and was among a long list of names which
• Artaud went by throughout his life.
• Basically I will Be talking about his
• Theatre Of Cruelty

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Theatre of Cruelty

• Artaud believed that the Theatre should affect
  the audience as much as possible, therefore he
  used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of
  lighting, sound and performance. In one
  production that he did about the plague he used
  sounds so realistic that some members of the
  audience were sick in the middle of the
  performance.
• The Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin
  Artaud's book Theatre and its Double. Without
  an element of cruelty at the root of every
  spectacle, the theater is not possible. In our
  present state of degeneration it is through the
  skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter
  our minds.
• 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.
• To put it another way, it's not cruelty in the
  sense of being violent, but the cruelty it takes
  for the actor to completely strip away their
  masks and the cruelty of showing an audience a
  truth that they don't want to see. 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. Antonin Artaud described the spiritual
  in physical terms, and believed that all
  expression is physical expression in space.

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Theatre of Cruelty

• In the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud was attempting
  a few things
• He had believed that the world, including the
  society, and the world of theatre had become an
  empty shell of itself.
• He was trying partly to revolutionize theatre -
  figuratively burn it to the ground so that it can
  start again.
• He was trying to connect people with something
  more primal, honest and true within themselves,
  that has been lost for most people. This has, it
  is believed, partly stemmed from Artaud's mental
  instability - he was attempting to purge himself
  through expression.

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Theatre of Cruelty

• Works by Artaud
• Artaud, Antonin. Oeuvres complètes dAntonin
  Artaud
• Artaud, Antonin. Collected Works of Antonin
  Artaud
• Artaud, Antonin. Selected Writings
• Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double
• In English
• Barber, Stephen Antonin Artaud Blows and Bombs
• Esslin, Martin. Antonin Artaud
• Rainer Friedrich, "The Deconstructed Self in
  Artaud and Brecht Negation of Subject and
  Antitotalitarianism,
• Innes, Christopher Avant-Garde Theater 1892-1992
• Jamieson, Lee Antonin Artaud From Theory to
  Practice
• Kimberly Jannarone, "The Theater Before Its
  Double Artaud Directs in the Alfred Jarry
  Theater,
• Koch, Stephen. On Artaud.
• Plunka, Gene A. (Ed). Antonin Artaud and the
  Modern Theater
• Roger Shattuck, "Artaud Possessed," The Innocent
  Eye
• Ward, Nigel "Fifty-one Shocks of Artaud
• In French
• Blanchot, Maurice. Artaud. La Nouvelle Revue
  Française 4

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Influence

• Artaud was heavily influenced by seeing a
  Colonial Exposition of Balinese Theatre in
  Marseille. He read eclectically, inspired by
  authors and artists such as Seneca, Shakespeare,
  Poe, Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, André Masson,
  etc.
• Artaud's theories in Theatre and Its Double
  influenced rock musician Jim Morrison. Mötley
  Crüe named the Theatre of Pain album after
  reading his proposal for a Theater of Cruelty,
  much like Christian Death had with their album
  Only Theatre of Pain. The band Bauhaus included a
  song about the playwright, called "Antonin
  Artaud", on their album Burning from the Inside.
  Charles Bukowski also claimed him as a major
  influence on his work. Influential Argentinean
  folk-rock songwriter Luis Alberto Spinetta named
  his album Artaud and wrote most of the songs on
  that album based on his writings. Composer John
  Zorn has three records, "Astronome," "Moonchild,"
  and "Six Litanies for Heliogabalus," dedicated to
  Artaud.

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Peter Brook

• Peter Stephen Paul Brook
• (born 21 March 1925) is a
• British theatre and film
• director and innovator.

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Peter Brook

• His work is inspired by the theories of
  experimental theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt
  Brecht, Meyerhold, G. I. Gurdjieff and the works
  of Edward Gordon Craig and Stuart Davis.
• Brook was influenced by the work of Antonin
  Artaud and his ideas for a Theatre of Cruelty.
• In England, at the Royal Shakespeare Company,
  Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz undertook The
  Theatre of Cruelty Season in 1964, aiming to
  explore ways in which Artaud's ideas could be
  used to find new forms of expression and retrain
  the performer. The result was a showing of 'works
  in progress' made up of improvisations and
  sketches, one of which was the premier of
  Artaud's The Spurt of Blood

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Peter Brook

• His Works
• The Empty Space
• Peter Brook's book The Empty Space was a highly
  influential piece of work. It consists of 4
  parts, each describing a version of the notion
  and nature of theatre. Each section is an
  adaptation of a speech he gave at various
  Universities.
• The Mahabharata
• In the mid 1970s, Brook, with writer Jean-Claude
  Carrière, began work on adapting the Indian epic
  poem the Mahabharata into a stage play which was
  first performed in 1985 and then later into a
  televised mini series.
• Tierno Bokar

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Peter Brook

• Other major productions
• Measure for Measure
• The Winter's Tale
• Titus Andronicus
• King Lear
• Marat/Sade
• US an anti-Vietnam protest play
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Hamlet
• The Visit with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne
• Marat/Sade
• Oedipus with John Gielgud and Irene Worth
• The Conference of the Birds
• The Ik
• The Mahabharata

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Thank You