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Artaud's Fraud Theory

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Personal code: gbn188
Solo Project The theorist, the theory, and the contexts

I have decided to study Antonin Artaud. I am drawn to him because I’m very interested in the psychological aspect of theater, and eliciting a response from the audience. The plays that I’ve done in the past were mostly realistic and didn’t provoke a large emotion from the audience other than happiness. The Theater of Cruelty is meant to disgust and terrify the audience, which is completely new to me.
Knowing the theorist will enable me to understand the theory better. Artaud had mental disorders and was repeatedly sent to asylums, which heavily influenced the conventions of Theater of Cruelty.
Antoine Artaud, full name Antoine-Marie-Joseph Artaud, was born …show more content…

Les Cenci, Artaud's play about a man who rapes his own daughter and is then murdered by men the girl hires to eliminate him, typifies Artaud's theater of cruelty. Another example of Artaud's work is The Fountain of Blood, a farce about the creation of the world and its destruction by humans, especially women. Like many of Artaud's other plays, scenarios, and prose, Les Cenci and The Fountain of Blood were designed to challenge conventional, civilized values and bring out the natural, barbaric instincts Artaud felt lurked beneath the refined, human …show more content…

He was influenced by Surrealism and at one time was a member of the movement. Artaud’s theatre’s intention was to awaken the dormant dream images of our minds. Artaud attempted to appeal to the irrational mind, one not conditioned by society, and there was an appeal to the subconscious, freeing the audience from their negativity. His theatre could not communicate using spoken language, or what he believed to be the “primary tool of rational thought.” The Theatre of Cruelty was an enhanced double of real life where Artaud created ‘doubles’ between the theatre and metaphysics, the plague, and cruelty. He claimed if the “theatre is the double of life, then life is the double of theatre.” His theatre was to mirror not that of everyday life, but the “reality of the extraordinary.” This ‘extraordinary’ was a reality not contaminated by ideas of morality and culture, but a higher form of reality. Artaud’s theatre aimed to appeal to, and release the emotions of, the audience, so mood played an important part in Theatre of Cruelty performances. By bombarding the audience’s senses, they underwent an emotional release, or

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