The Theatre of Cruelty (french: Théâtre de la Cruauté, also french: Théâtre cruel) is a form of theatre generally associated with
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
. Artaud, who was briefly a member of the surrealist movement, outlined his theories in ''
The Theatre and Its Double
''The Theatre and Its Double'' (''Le Théâtre et son Double'') is a collection of essays by French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud. It contains his most famous works on the theatre, including his manifestos for a Theatre of Cruelty.
Compos ...
''. The Theatre of Cruelty can be seen as a break from traditional Western theatre and a means by which artists assault the senses of the audience. Artaud's works have been highly influential on artists including
Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's ...
,
Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today.
He was born in Rzesz ...
,
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
, and
Romeo Castellucci
Romeo Castellucci (born August 4, 1960) is an Italian theatre director, playwright, artist and designer. Since the 1980s he has been one part of the European theatrical avant-garde.
Biography
Romeo Castellucci graduated with a degree in paintin ...
.
History
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
was well known as an actor, playwright, and essayist of
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
theatre,
and briefly a member of the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
movement in Paris from 1924 - 1926, before his 'radical independence and his uncontrollable personality, perpetually in revolt, brought about his excommunication by
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
.' Much of the avant-garde theatre developed in France from 1914 to 1939 can be seen as a revolt against tradition. Deeply affected by the events of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the artists of the movement felt increasing skepticism of the existing societal structures that had allowed for global warfare.
While Artaud would eventually break away from surrealism, the movement helped to shape his later theories on the Theatre of Cruelty. Led by
André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
, surrealist theatre reflected a belief that the unconscious mind is a source of artistic truth. In his manifesto on surrealism, Breton writes, "pure psychic automatism, by which is intended to express, verbally, in writing, or by other means, the real process of thought. Thought's dictation, in absence of all control exercised by the reason and outside all esthetic or moral preoccupation."
In 1926, in association with surrealist playwright
Roger Vitrac Roger Vitrac (; 17 November 1899 – 22 January 1952) was a French surrealist playwright and poet.
Early life
Roger Vitrac was born in Pinsac on 17 November 1899, before his family moved to Paris in 1910.:527 As a young man, he was influenced by ...
, Artaud founded the
Theatre Alfred Jarry
The Theatre Alfred Jarry was founded in January 1926 by Antonin Artaud with Robert Aron and Roger Vitrac, in Paris, France. It was influenced by Surrealism and Theatre of the Absurd, and was foundational to Artaud's theory of the Theatre of Cru ...
, which only produced non-realistic drama. The theatre lasted only two years.
After his work in surrealist theatre, Artaud went on to develop his theories on the Theatre of Cruelty after he was inspired by a
Balinese dance
Balinese dance ( id, Tarian Bali; ban, ᬇᬕᬾᬮᬦ᭄ᬩᬮᬶ) is an ancient dance tradition that is part of the religious and artistic expression among the Balinese people of Bali island, Indonesia. Balinese dance is dynamic, angula ...
troupe performance that he viewed at the Paris Colonial Exhibit in 1931. The performance conventions of Balinese dance were different from any Artaud had previously experienced, and he was struck by the intense physicality of the dancers.
Artaud went on to publish his major work on the Theatre of Cruelty, ''The Theatre and Its Double'', seven years later in 1938.
Theory
![Artaud BNF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Artaud_BNF.jpg)
''
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
'' describes the Theatre of Cruelty as "a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself".
It goes on to say that ''Manifeste du théâtre de la cruauté'' (1932; ''Manifesto of the Theatre of Cruelty'') and ''Le Théâtre et son double'' (1938; ''The Theatre and Its Double'') both called for "communion between actor and audience in a magic exorcism; gestures, sounds, unusual scenery, and lighting combine to form a language, superior to words, that can be used to subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world."
Artaud warned against the dangers of psychology in theater and strove to create a theater in which the
mise-en-scène
''Mise-en-scène'' (; en, "placing on stage" or "what is put into the scene") is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in visual arts through storyboarding, visual theme, and cinematography, ...
, everything present in the staging of a production, could be understood as a codified stage language, with minimal emphasis on spoken language.
Defining Artaud's "theatre" and "cruelty"
In his writings on the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud notes that both "theatre" and "cruelty" are separate from their colloquial meanings. For Artaud, theatre does not merely refer to a staged performance before a passive audience. The theatre is a practice, which "wakes us up. Nerves and heart," and through which we experience "immediate violent action" that "inspires us with the fiery magnetism of its images and acts upon us like a spiritual therapeutics whose touch can never be forgotten."
Similarly, cruelty does not refer to an act of emotional or physical violence. According to scholar Nathan Gorelick,
Cruelty is, more profoundly, the unrelenting agitation of a life that has become unnecessary, lazy, or removed from a compelling force. The Theatre of Cruelty gives expression to everything that is ‘crime, love, war, or madness' in order to ‘unforgettably root within us the ideas of perpetual conflict, a spasm in which life is continually lacerated, in which everything in creation rises up and asserts itself against our appointed rank.
For Artaud,
cruelty
Cruelty is the pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available. Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept. Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve viol ...
is not exclusively
sadism
Sadism may refer to:
* Sadomasochism, the giving or receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation
* Sadistic personality disorder, an obsolete term proposed for individuals who derive pleasure from the s ...
or causing pain, but just as often a violent, physical determination to shatter a false reality. 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. Artaud described the spiritual in physical terms, and believed that all theatre is physical expression in space.Evidently, Artaud's various uses of the term cruelty must be examined to fully understand his ideas. Lee Jamieson has identified four ways in which Artaud used the term cruelty. First, it is employed metaphorically to describe the essence of human existence.Artaud's second use of the term (according to Jamieson), is as a form of discipline. Although Artaud wanted to "reject form and incite chaos" (Jamieson, p. 22), he also promoted strict discipline and rigor in his performance techniques. A third use of the term was 'cruelty as theatrical presentation'. The Theatre of Cruelty aimed to hurl the spectator into the centre of the action, forcing them to engage with the performance on an instinctive level. For Artaud, this was a cruel, yet necessary act upon the spectator, designed to shock them out of their complacency:Artaud wanted to put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. He referred to this layout as being like a 'vortex' – a constantly shifting shape – 'to be trapped and powerless'. He also placed a great emphasis on sound rather than words or dialogue, by incorporating loud cries, screams, eerie sounds, or noises causing the audience to become uncomfortable. Words were an insufficient medium of expression.
Finally, Artaud used the term to describe his philosophical views.
Break with Western theatre
In ''
The Theatre and Its Double
''The Theatre and Its Double'' (''Le Théâtre et son Double'') is a collection of essays by French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud. It contains his most famous works on the theatre, including his manifestos for a Theatre of Cruelty.
Compos ...
'', Artaud expressed his admiration for
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
forms of theatre, particularly the
Balinese. Artaud felt that the focus of theatre in the west had become far too narrow—primarily examining the psychological suffering of individuals or the societal struggles of specific groups of people. He wanted to delve into the aspects of the subconscious that he believed were often the root cause of human being's mistreatment of one another.
Through an assault on the audiences' senses, Artaud was convinced that a theatrical experience could help people purge destructive feelings and experience the joy that society forces them to repress. For Artaud, "the theatre has been created to drain abscesses collectively."
Insufficiency of language
Artaud believed that language was an entirely insufficient means to express trauma. Accordingly, he felt that words should be stripped of meaning and chosen for their phonic elements. According to scholar Robert Vork, "Speech on the Theatre of Cruelty's stage is reduced to inarticulate sounds, cries, and gibbering screams, no longer inviting a subject into being but seeking to preclude its very existence."
Somewhat paradoxically, Artaud claims that his characters are able to express things that others are unable to say. Vork claims, "Artaud seems to be suggesting that his play reveals emotions and experiences that we all attempt to proscribe and are unwilling to acknowledge, but which nevertheless occur."
"Impossible theatre"
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," 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."
Productions and staging
Artaud wanted to abolish the stage and auditorium, and to do away with sets and props and masks. He envisioned the performance space as an empty room with the audience seated in the center and the actors performing all around them. The stage effects included overwhelming sounds and bright lights in order to stun the audience's sensibilities and completely immerse them in the theatrical experience.
Artaud believed that he could erode an audience's resistance by using these methods, "addressed first of all to the senses rather than to the mind," because, "the public thinks first with all of its senses."
In his lifetime, Artaud only produced one play that put the theories of the Theatre of Cruelty into practice. He staged and directed ''Les Cenci'', adapted from the dramatic work of the same title by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
, in 1935 at the Théâtre des Folies-Wagram in Paris.
The play was neither a commercial or critical success and ran for only 17 performances. Artaud, however, believed that, while he was forced to limit the scope of his vision due to financial constraints, ''Les Cenci'' succeeded in exemplifying the tenets of the Theatre of Cruelty.
Legacy
According to scholar
Pericles Lewis
Pericles Lewis is the Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of comparative literature at Yale University and the Dean of Yale College.
Previously at Yale, he was the founding President of Yale-NUS College, a liberal arts college in Singapore that is join ...
, the influences of the Theatre of Cruelty can most clearly be seen in the works of
Jean Genet
Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's ...
, a post World War II playwright. His plays featured ritualized murder and systemic oppression in order to show the negative consequences and suffering caused by political subjugation.
In the 1960s, a number of directors began to incorporate Artaud's theories and staging practices in their work, including
Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today.
He was born in Rzesz ...
at the Theater Laboratory in Poland. In England, famed theatre director
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
experimented with the Theatre of Cruelty in a series of workshops at the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...
(RSC). These experiments are reflected in his direction and staging of RSC's lauded 1966 production of ''
Marat/Sade
''The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade'' (german: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgrupp ...
'', a play with music by
Peter Weiss
Peter Ulrich Weiss (8 November 1916 – 10 May 1982) was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays ''Marat/Sade'' and ''The Investigation'' and hi ...
.
''Marat/Sade'' uses dramatic devices developed by both Artaud and
Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
to depict class struggle and human suffering in the midst of changing social structures.
The
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
dramatist
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller (; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdr ...
argues that we have yet to feel or to appreciate fully Artaud's contribution to theatrical culture; his ideas are, Müller implies, 'untimely' :"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."
Modern activist application
In 2011, a group of geography and sociology professors used the Theatre of Cruelty as a conceptual, experience based technique to explore the agrarian struggle and
deforestation in the Amazon Basin. These professors:
"…suggest that theater, more generally, provides structure for cruel performance, and that violent land conflict, together with forest destruction, constitutes a predictable tragedy of theatrical events. In other words, violent land conflict in Amazonia, with all its terrible implication for people and environment, can be grasped as a theatrical structure with philosophic and material consequences for mind and body."
[Walker (2011)]
See also
*
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of ...
*
Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/po ...
*
Panic Movement
Panic Movement (''Mouvement panique'') was an art collective formed by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Roland Topor in Paris in 1962. Inspired by and named after the god Pan, and influenced by Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud's Theat ...
*
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Richard Wagner, Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu Roi, Ubu plays as a rejection of bot ...
*
Theatre of France
This article is an overview of the theatre of France.
Historic overview
Secular French theatre
Discussions about the origins of non-religious theatre ("théâtre profane") -- both drama and farce—in the Middle Ages remain controversial, but th ...
Citations
References
* Antonin Artaud, Mary C. Richard (translator), ''The Theater and Its Double''. Grove Press, 1994.
* Barber, Stephen. 1993. ''Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs''. London: Faber. .
* Howe Kritzer, Amelia. 1991. ''The Plays of Caryl Churchill: Theatre of Empowerment''. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. .
* Jamieson, Lee. 2007. ''Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice'' London: Greenwich Exchange. .
* Müller, Heiner. 1977. "Artaud The Language of Cruelty." In ''Germania''. Trans. Bernard Schütze and Caroline Schütze. Ed.
Sylvère Lotringer
Sylvère Lotringer (15 October 1938 – 8 November 2021) was a French-born Literary critics, literary critic and cultural theorist. Initially based in New York City, he later lived in Los Angeles and Baja California, Mexico.Hultkrans, Andrew"Boo ...
. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e), 1990. . 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. .
* Walker, Robert, Simmons, Cynthia, Aldrich, Stephen, Perz, Stephen, Arima, Eugenio and Caldas, Marcellus. 2011. ''The Amazonian Theater of Cruelty''. The Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Volume 101: 1156-1170.
External links
Theater of Crueltyat the ''Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia''
Theater of Crueltyat ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
Antonin Artaudat The Poetry Foundation
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Theatrical genres
Modernist theatre
Antonin Artaud