Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty

Antonin Artaud was a french actor, poet, playwright and director.
He was the one who put forth the "Theatre of Cruelty." He believed that the audience should be involved as much as possible and with that the statements he wanted to make would be put across. He also believed that to involve the audience, the actors should shock them, to grab their attention. To Artaud, this was cruel, because the actors are forcefully engaging the audience through fear and shock, and thus creating the Theatre of Cruelty.

An interesting connection with what we have studied before and with Artaud was that he was intrigued with Balinese Theatre. He admired that fact that they used almost no dialogue and the message conveyed was mostly through gestures, facial expressions, sounds, lights etc..

We started to study his theories through simple exercises, such as trying to catch other people's attention other than using words, for instance, making faces at them or jumping up and down etc.
Then Maria, Sofia and I did a group exercise where we had to include five aspects: Mirror, Follow, Shadow, Echo and Pine Away. With improvisations, we ended up with a basic story of two girls wanting to be like another and follows and imitates her until she rejects her, which then they start to pine away.
Our main aim was to try to use as little words as possible.

Then we moved onto a larger assignment. An Artaudian approach to the retelling of the story of Echo and Narcissus. Basically what we did was:

We started with Mei and Maria sitting on the ground with Sofia sitting on one of the black stages. This was in the dark. Then scratching started and then a red light turned on. From there some drumming started as Mei and Maria started to move around kind of disturbingly. Then assembled, along with myself, at the feet of Sofia, who was playing the goddess, Juno.

>The beginning was to, firstly, set the mood of the piece, and secondly, to show how cruel goddesses can be.<

Echo came in and talked to Juno (but in mumbles so it seemed like she spoke a lot in general), then Juno got fed up and silenced her, pushing her to the ground along with her servants. Then she used her magic to take away Echo's voice. The servants screamed whilst this happened and then once Sofia clapped her hands, the screaming stopped to signify that there was no voice left. Then we all exited the stage. I, as Narcissus went on walking around until I tripped on Sara, who was playing Echo. Then I just stepped over her, until she grabbed my legs, as if trying to get my attention. Once Narcissus ignored her, she started crying, helplessly. While she cried, a hand comes from behind the black stages (that were standing on its side), and signals Narcissus to come closer. After Narcissus admired and fell in love with the reflection (indicated by him saying "so beautiful"), the reflection suddenly gets a hold of Narcissus and brings him down into the pond and a flower replaces him. One of his friends (Mei) comes, picked the flower up and said "Narcissus." After a few moments, the whole cast starts laughing and assembled at the black stages. Suddenly Mei says Narcissus towards the audience (the camera) and we all approach the audience saying "Narcissus," as if we want to get a hold of someone.

>The laughing represents our opinions on this matter. Falling in love with your own reflection and being so addicted to it that you die is a laughing matter. It is so pathetic that anyone would laugh at it.
When we assemble is like a curtain call but where some people are placed is symbolic. Sara (Echo) sat at Sofia's (Juno) feet, and I (Narcissus) sat with Maria (the reflection) behind me.
The very end is to put a statement to the play. Narcissism is a sin and therefore it will backfire one day. So when we approach the audience as if we were to strangle them, was to act as if there was a narcissist person in the audience and we were out to get him/her.<

I thought this was successful, in the sense that we improved from what we had before. First, we were mostly interpreting the story rather than using Artaud's theories. I think what were the main highlights were the red lighting and the use of sound, however that may have hindered our message and even the plot.

To conclude this entry, I got one of Artaud's poems.

Who am I?
Where do I come from?
I am Antonin Artaud
and I say this
as I know how to say this
immediatly
you will see my present body
burst into fragments
and remake itself
under ten thousand notorious aspects
a new body
where you will
never
forget me.

The part of this poem in which I remember well is "Where you will never forget me." It reminds me of the Theatre of Cruelty, because it shocks the audience so much that it is very rememberable.