Theatre of Cruelty

Theatre of Cruelty

::"This article is about the style of drama. For the short story, see: Theatre of Cruelty (Discworld)"The Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin Artaud's book "The 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” (Artaud, "The Theatre and its Double"). 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."

Theory

Antonin Artaud spoke of cruelty (french: "cruauté") not in the sense of being violent, but the cruelty it takes for actors to completely strip away their masks and show an audience a truth that they do not 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 that lay halfway between thought and gesture. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all expression is physical expression in space.

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. In the theatre of cruelty, he was trying partly to revolutionise theatre - figuritively burn it to the ground so that it can start again. On another level 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.

Stephen Barber explains that "the Theatre of Cruelty has often been called an impossible theatre--vital for the purity of inspiration which it generated, but hopelessly vague and metaphorical in its concrete detail." This impossibility has not prevented others from articulating a version of his principles as the basis for explorations of their own. "Though many of those theatre-artists proclaimed an Artaudian lineage (Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Richard Schechner among them)," Susie Tharu argues, "the Artaud they invoke is marked by a commitment as ahistorical and transcendent as their own." There is, she suggests, another 'Artaud' and "the tradition he was midwife to." [See Tharu (1984).]

The German dramatist Heiner Müller, who along with Caryl Churchill and Pina Bausch has been identified as having produced a fusion or critical dialogue between Artaudian and Brechtian performance in their work (which is one characteristic of the postmodern in theatre), argues that we have yet to feel or to appreciate fully Artaud's contribution to theatrical culture; his ideas are, Müller implies, 'untimely' (in Nietzsche's sense): [For the Brecht-Artaud dialogue in postmodern theatre, see Wright (1989), Price (1990), and Howe Kritzer (1991).]

"ARTAUD THE LANGUAGE OF CRUELTY Writing from the experience that masterpieces are accomplices of power. Thought at the end of the Enlightenment, which began with the death of God; the Enlightenment is the coffin in which he is buried, rotting with the corpse. Life is locked up in this coffin. THOUGHT IS AMONG THE GREATEST PLEASURES OF THE HUMAN RACE Brecht has Galilei say, before he is shown the instruments. The lightning that split Artaud's consciousness was Nietzsche's experience, it could be the last. The emergency is Artaud. He tore literature away from the police, theater away from medicine. Under the sun of torture, which shines equally on all the continents of this planet, his texts blossom. Read on the ruins of Europe, they will be classics." [Müller (1977), p. 175.]

ee also

*Theatre of the Absurd

References

* Barber, Stephen. 1993. "Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs". London: Faber. ISBN 0571172520.
* Howe Kritzer, Amelia. 1991. "The Plays of Caryl Churchill: Theatre of Empowerment". Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333522486.
* Jamieson, Lee. 2007. "Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice" London: Greenwich Exchange. ISBN 9781871551983.
* Müller, Heiner. 1977. "Artaud The Language of Cruelty." In "Germania". Trans. Bernard Schütze and Caroline Schütze. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990. ISBN 0936756632. p.175.
* Price, David W. 1990. "The Politics of the Body: Pina Bausch’s "Tanztheater". "Theatre Journal" 42.3 (Oct). 322-331.
* Tharu, Susie J. 1984. "The Sense of Performance: Post-Artaud Theatre". New Delhi : Arnold-Heinemann. ISBN 0391030507.

Footnotes


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • theatre of cruelty — noun A branch of drama, based on the theories of Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), intended to induce in the audience a feeling of suffering and an awareness of the presence of evil • • • Main Entry: ↑theatre …   Useful english dictionary

  • Theatre of Cruelty — Theory advanced by Antonin Artaud, who believed the theatre s function was to rid audiences of the repressive effects of civilization and liberate their instinctual energy. He proposed to do so by shocking them with mythic spectacles that would… …   Universalium

  • Theatre of Cruelty (Discworld) — infobox Discworldshort|id=2nd short story 2nd City Watch story characters=Ankh Morpork City Watch Carrot Ironfoundersson Death locations=Ankh Morpork motifs=Fantasy clichés, Theatre of Cruelty is a short Discworld story by Terry Pratchett written …   Wikipedia

  • theatre, Western — ▪ art Introduction       history of the Western theatre from its origins in pre Classical antiquity to the present.       For a discussion of drama as a literary form, see dramatic literature and the articles on individual national literatures.… …   Universalium

  • theatre —    After the Civil War (1936–9), the theatre, like most other cultural manifestations, was forced to be as non controversial as possible. There was a return to the light social dramas of, for instance, the Álvarez Quintero brothers and Carlos… …   Encyclopedia of contemporary Spanish culture

  • Cruelty, Theatre of — ▪ experimental theatre       project for an experimental theatre that was proposed by the French poet, actor, and theorist Antonin Artaud (Artaud, Antonin) and that became a major influence on avant garde 20th century theatre.       Artaud,… …   Universalium

  • Cruelty — Cruel redirects here. For other uses, see Cruel (disambiguation). Cruelty can be described as indifference to suffering, and even positive pleasure in inflicting it. If this is supported by a legal or social framework, then receives the name of… …   Wikipedia

  • theatre — /thee euh teuhr, theeeu /, n. theater. * * * I Building or space in which performances are given before an audience. It contains an auditorium and stage. In ancient Greece, where Western theatre began (5th century BC), theatres were constructed… …   Universalium

  • Theatre of the Absurd — The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Théâtre de l Absurde ) is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from… …   Wikipedia

  • Theatre of Hate — Infobox musical artist Name = Theatre of Hate Img capt = Background = group or band Origin = London, United Kingdom Genre = Post punk and Gothic rock Years active = 1980 1983 Associated acts = The Pack Spear of Destiny Dead Men Walking Label =… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”