Antonin Artaud

Context

Antonine Artaud was a French dramatist, actor, and theatre director. He was famously recognized as being an extremely influential figure in twentieth-century theatre. Artaud was born 4th September 1896 in Marseille, France. He was raised by his family who were strictly religious. As a child, he suffered from meningitis and depression which meant he had a troubled childhood. I find this interesting as this relates to our theme of mental health in our play. Artaud lived with a mental health problem which would have affected his life and his work. It is interesting to see the effect of depression on people as this enables us to have a clear understanding of how to portray a mental illness when acting in our performance. He was reluctant to conform to the conventions of society, therefore he was sent to be incarcerated in a sanatorium. I believe this may have influenced his extreme views on society and theatre. His early life was cruel and an unhappy experience, therefore he had a negative view on society. He didn’t want theatre to be naturalistic as his life was so bad and he didn’t want this to be portrayed on stage he wanted to create a form of escapism. During his time in the sanatorium, he was prescribed opium. This lead to a long lasting drug addiction. He studied at the Collège du Sacré-Cœur.  Antonin Artaud liked to associate himself with Surrealist artists, writers and experimental theatre groups in Paris. He founded the ‘Theatre Alfred Jarry’ with the help of Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Their ambition was to create a forum for works that would change French theatre forever. He is probably most famous for his concepts of ‘Theatre of cruelty’ and ‘Total theatre’. 

The Theatre of Cruelty

There was a lot of theory behind his concept of ‘Theatre of cruelty.’ This has a major influence on the development of this idea. Artaud said ‘Cruelty means strictness, diligence, irreversible and absolute determination and unrelenting decisiveness.’  Theatre of Cruelty refers to the idea of pushing actors and audiences to extreme states of experience out of which they may transcend themselves. Artaud believed that civilization had turned humans into sick and repressed creatures and that the true function of the theatre was to rid humankind of these repressions and liberate each individual’s instinctual energy. Artaud attempted to appeal to the irrational mind, rather than one brainwashed by society. He aimed to appeal to the subconscious, freeing the audience from their negativity. His theatre didn’t aim to mirror everyday life, instead it aimed to mirror the extraordinary. This ‘extraordinary’ was a reality not contaminated by ideas of morality and culture.  Artaud’s theatre aimed to appeal to, and release the emotions of, the audience. The mood played an important part in Theatre of Cruelty performances. He believed in catharsis, this was an emotional release on behalf of the audience.  Due to his mental illness, he had a very pessimistic view of mankind and society. Artaud saw both the world around him and the theatre, itself, in need of change. This explains why his methods are considered to be too strict or cruel in some ways. He believed that we are all the same under the skin, no matter who we are or our position in society's hierarchy. He believed that humanity does not change, regardless of cultural, historical or geographical circumstances. He believed that given a situation where the normal rules of society are over turned, such as a war or the plague, we will all do extraordinary things. For example, he believed we will murder and pillage because law and order will not exist, hence giving us no reason not to do this. He believed that ultimately ‘man is savage.’ In some ways I agree with this idea because law prevents us from doing many things that we may want to do because they are fun or they will benefit us, either socially or financially. However, I don’t believed that it would be as extreme as Artaud’s interpretation of what could happen. This is because I believe in basic humanity and that we don’t commit crimes such as murder or rape because our basic human instincts tell us it is wrong and that we all care for each other. However, Artaud had a negative view of society due to his upbringing and mental health issues, therefore he saw the darker side of people that we don’t see or don’t want to think about. Artaud believed that a man must be put in an extreme situation, as close as possible to the conditions in which he could experience the plague or a similar imminent annihilation. He believed that the only way to dig deeper and exposes the inner man, was to be pushed to an extreme situation or circumstance. In order to achieve this, the actors and the audience must be cruel to themselves by pushing themselves to the limit. This explains Artaud’s subject material and themes or issues explored in the performances which always deal with human beings being pushed in extreme situations. Theatre was a powerful tool for Artaud. It was a method of exposing and realising society's ills. He was interested in our dreams and wanted to know what they suggest and the secret desires to commit horrifying or outrageous acts. He thought that if deep down we are all savages under the skin, then our dreams will show our true hidden darker desires. He was very interested in the horror and cruelty of what we all do or what we want to do. He was very interested in the horror and cruelty of our personalities and characteristics. Theatre of cruelty helps us to release the poison and contain it before an extreme circumstance such as war. Therefore if we were given the opportunity to rape or murder someone, we wouldn't because his theatre will have been used as a method of containing it. Theatre of cruelty of a war of cutting the 'Tumour' away from society. I think this is a really interesting concept as we don’t truly know someone until you see how they act in an uncomfortable or important situation. This can uncover undiscovered features of someone’s personality such as how caring or brave they will be. Furthermore, it could show whether they are selfless or selfish by showing whether they look after others or only look after themselves. This is an idea that I really want to convey in the play I am writing as I want to disprove stereotypes and shock audiences with the surprising darker side of someone’s characteristics. His techniques and ideas were put into stage in a variety of ways. He had to find methods to make his theatre productions stand out from other mundane plays and create unusual theatre which crossed boundaries. Artaud believed in removing the barrier on stage between the performers and the audience.  He wanted to produce spectacular mythical plays that would include groans, screams, detailed lighting effects, and huge stage puppets and props. Many of Artaud’s writings about theatre are difficult to understand or comprehend and his manifestos in ‘The Theatre and Its Double’ are considered to be dark of horrific.  Theatre of Cruelty aimed to shock the senses of its audience, it often used violent and disturbing images that connect to the emotions of the audience. Piercing sound and bright stage lights bombarded the audience during performances The emphasis on the written or spoken text was significantly reduced in order to emphasise the importance of other elements such as light, costume and movement. The notion of text being exalted or being a powerful tool on stage was eliminated. Moreover, he wanted to use improvisation rather than written scripts. I believe that this is effective as the dialogue on stage will flow smoothly and will be more truthful or believable to an audience. In addition, it is very interesting as nobody knows what they or other people would do when pushed to an extreme situation, therefore knowing the next line can take away from the shock or honesty of another actor’s reaction. Artaud was inspired by a performance of Balinese dancers. He was interested in their use of gesture and dance in their movement on stage.  Artaud didn’t want much spoken dialogue on stage and wanted to create a new non-verbal language for his actors when performing in a theatre. He thought that a ritualistic movement was a key feature of his productions, this often replacing traditional text or spoken dialogue. Actors often portrayed their emotions and communicated through ‘signs. These were usually formed of facial expressions and movement. Dance and gesture became just as effective as the spoken words. Often, his movement became disturbing or violent which reflects on Artaud’s negative and pessimistic view of society. Sometimes the violent images were subtle or non-explicit and were left for the minds of the audience rather than being shown on stage. Artaud experimented with the actor-audience relationship. Their relationship between the actor and audience became rather intimate. He usually positioned the audience at the very centre of a performance surrounding them. His intention was to trap or engulf the audience inside the drama. The audience were therefore placed in a weaker, less powerful position, giving the actors more power to influence them. The audience were often seated on swivel chairs, hence allowing them to easily spin around to follow the action. Artaud’s actors were encouraged to openly use emotions, this contrasts to Brecht’s idea of ‘Epic Theatre.’ There was no emphasis on individual characters in the performance and they were defined by movement, gesture and dance rather than spoken dialogue. I think his ideas are very effective as it allows us to focus on our body language and facial expressions and how we can convey emotions or a story though these particular aspects of acting. 

Total Theatre

Total Theatre is the means by which the heightened stage could be achieved. Modern ‘civilised’ human beings have an innate capacity to reason themselves out of situations, to explain away emotional or spiritual experiences. Aware of this, Artaud wanted to bombard them with so much sensory experience such as sound, costume and light at once that the mind literally battered into submission, hence the phrase ‘total theatre; this means to combine all of drama’s elements including light, sound, costume, set, music, masks and acting into a sensory experience of gigantic proportions which assaults the audience from all sides at once. The brain is thus softened up and the audience’s inner selves, their ‘doubles’ can be released. Total theatre portrays mankind or humanity's true self. Artaud aimed to get past our cultural standards within society about what a person should be like or how they should behave due to their background. We must get beyond this to discover or release a true inner self. Artaud inspired other practitioners such as Peter Brook and Grotowski. He believed that theatre should be participatory event for the audience. It should express modern life and the universal concerns of mankind.  Artaud believed that theatre should be used for the emancipation of the human subconscious and revelation of man to himself. He 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.’ 

Class exercises

Our first session on Artaud focused on emotion and imagination. The first exercise involved passing an emotion around the circle. As each person passed on the emotion, it became larger and more exaggerated. The first emotion we started with was joy. This was quite an easy emotion to portray. The feeling was infectious and as it got passed around it grew with ease, finally reaching the point of jumping, screaming with happiness and laughter. I believed that this is because joy is an emotion that you want to share with everyone, therefore the positive and lively energy became contagious, therefore allowing you to act and build upon it. We were able to find this instinctual element and bring it out in a truthful way. The second emotion was sadness and this became a lot more difficult than joy. At first, the exercise was simple. However, at a certain point we couldn't produce an honest reaction that was larger than the person before us without the reaction appearing comical or unnatural. Sadness is quite a difficult emotion to quickly conjure up and takes long time to build-up. Furthermore, it is an emotion that most people feel insecure and we don't wish to show our sadness to others. Most people show extreme sadness in different ways, some people may fall on the floor crying while others may go into the corner and remain silent without crying at all. Different circumstances affect people in different ways. Applying this to a performance context I think that falling down on the floor or going into the corner would be stronger and more truthful than a moment of shrieking and tears. This exercise also showed us how difficult it is to work with extreme emotion and how even when you go to those places it is imperative to keep and element of truth. Moreover, it allowed me to focus on the importance of facial expressions and body language as well as my voice when conveying an emotion in stage. The second exercise involved us splitting off into smaller groups and working to show off an emotion without speaking. My group had trust; we thought the best way to communicate this would be trough trust falls and hugging each other in order to show a strong bond of love and friendship within a group. However, this was the intellectual response to the stimulus which was juxtaposed Artaud’s interpretation of portraying an emotion on stage. This could be considered to be a Brechtian technique as we showed the emotion and make a comment rather than truthfully and instinctually feel it. If I repeated this exercise, I would try find a more abstract way of presenting trust that doesn't examine the nature of truth. This exercise was very effective as it highlighted the difficulty of portraying different emotions and how sometimes when you think you are demonstrating an emotion like fear you could actually be showing a similar emotion such as isolation. The next exercise was an imagination exercise. We were told to lay on the floor with our eyes closed and imagine being in different situations such as sinking in mud or drinking from a chocolate river. One of the exercises included being trapped in a spider's web. The feeling of fear and not being able to move was terrifying and easy to immerse myself in. This was because I could bring this feeling into my entire body and squirm and wriggling all I wanted to which made it feel as real as possible. Furthermore, I could hear the panic and cries of everyone else in the room which made me feel more anxious and scared which was very effective. The chocolate exercise was probably the most difficult in my opinion. I could imagine the taste of the chocolate. However, I wasn't really being effective by it. I feel that happiness is harder to portray than fear as you can fully immerse yourself into the emotion of fear and panic, however happiness and harder to dig deep into in an imagination exercise. My attempts to vocalise my emotion felt unnatural or untruthful. After discussion it seems that I wasn't the only one and most people find this difficult as it is hard to find a raw and meaningful emotion about chocolate. We are not pushed to an extreme circumstance when thinking about chocolate. Artaud wanted to find a raw emotion and discover truthful emotions and characters by pushing actors to their limit in extreme situations, hence the theatre of cruelty. The final imagination exercise involved us using chairs to create a tunnel. Artaud would use a lot of tool in order to bring out the best in his actors; which included set, sound effects and props. Having a physical barrier around us help to recreate the claustrophobic conditions of a tunnel under the earth. We banged on the chairs to make it seem like rocks were falling; we spoke like we were fellow trapped miners and screamed.  I believe that in their heads they I was truly immersed in this imagination exercise. This was very effective as it heightened out emotions and we could imagine how we would act when pushed to our limits.