Surrealist Theatre

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Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s,and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the groupmembers.Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions andnon sequitur; however, many Surrealist artistsand writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophicalmovement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact.LeaderAndré Bretonwas explicit in his assertion that Surrealismwas above all a revolutionary movement.Surrealism developed out of theDadaactivities of World War I andthe most important center of the movement was Paris. From the1920s on, the movement spread around the globe, eventuallyaffecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of manycountries and languages, as well as political thought and practice,philosophy and social theory.

Surrealist Theatre

SurrealistTheatre depicts thesubconscious experience,moodytone anddisjointedstructure, sometimes imposing a unifying idea.Antonin Artaud, one of the original Surrealists, rejected Westerntheatre as a perversion of the original intent of theatre, which he feltshould be a religious and mystical experience. He thought thatrational discourse comprised "falsehood and illusion," whichembodied the worst of discourse. Endeavoring to create a newtheatrical form that would be immediate and direct, linking theunconscious minds of performers and spectators, a sort of ritualevent, Artaud created the Theatre of Crueltywhere emotions,feelings, and the metaphysical were expressed not through text ordialogue but physically, creating a mythological, archetypal,allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams. These sentiments also led to the Theatre of the Absurdwhoseinspiration came, in part, from silent film and comedy, as well as thetradition of verbal nonsense in early sound film (Laurel and Hardy,W. C. Fields, theMarx Brothers).

Virginia Woolf 's only play Freshwater conjures surreal images bysuggestion using a collective identity.

Antonin Artaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known asAntonin Artaud (September 4, 1896, inMarseille– March 4, 1948 in Paris) was aFrench playwright,poet,actorandtheatre director. Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine (little Anthony), and was among along list of names which Artaud usedthroughout his life.

Biographical Information

Artaud's parents, Euphrasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud, were of Greekorigin (Smyrna), and he was much affected by this background. Although his mother had nine children, only Antoineand two siblings survived infancy.At the age of four, Artaud had a severe attack of meningitis. Thevirusgave Artaud a nervous, irritable temperament throughoutadolescence. He also suffered fromneuralgia, stammering andsevere bouts of depression. As a teenager, he was allegedly stabbedin the back by apimpfor no apparent reason, similar to theexperience of playwrightSamuel Beckett.Artaud's parents arranged a long series of sanatoriumstays for theirdisruptive son, which were both prolonged and expensive. Theylasted five years, with a break of two months, June and July 1916,when Artaud wasconscriptedinto thearmy. He was allegedly discharged due to his self-induced habit of sleepwalking. DuringArtaud's "rest cures" at the sanatorium, he readArthur Rimbaud,Charles Baudelaire, andEdgar Allan Poe. In May 1919, the director of the sanatorium prescribedlaudanumfor Artaud, precipitating alifelong addiction to that and otheropiates.

Paris

In March 1920, aged 24, Artaud moved to Paris to pursue a careeras a writer but quickly discovered he had a talent for avant-gardetheatre. Whilst training and performing with the most acclaimeddirectors of the day, most notably Charles Dullin and GeorgesPitoeff, he continued to write both poetry and essays. At the age of 27, he sent some of his poems to the journal

La Nouvelle RevueFrançaise

; they were rejected, but the editor, Jacques Rivière, wrote

back seeking to understand him, and a relationship in letters wasborn. Thisepistolarywork,

Correspondence avec Jacques Rivière

, isArtaud's first major publication.In 1925, Artaud effectively took over directing thesurrealist movement, writing many of the articles for The Surrealist Revolutionand running the Bureau of Surrealist Research, a loose affiliation of surrealists interested in exploring automatic writing, recordingdreams and engaging in anything which rejected rationality. Afterabout 18 months he grew increasingly frustrated by what heperceived as the surrealists' unwillingness to do any more thandisrupt bourgeois art events and create scandal. They in turn,spearheaded by André Breton who possibly felt his leadership of themovement to be threatened by Artaud's dynamic energy andextreme radical commitment, set about ejecting him from the groupafter he publicly began to call their revolutionary bluff.Artaud also cultivated a great interest incinemaas well, writing thescenario for the first Surrealist film,

The Seashell and theClergyman

, directed byGermaine Dulac. Dali and Bunuel, two keySpanish surrealists, took their cue for Un Chien Andalou from this.He also acted inAbel Gance's

in the role of Jean-PaulMarat, and inCarl Theodor Dreyer's

The Passion of Joan of Arc

asthe monk Massieu. Artaud's portrayal of Marat used exaggeratedmovements to convey the fire of Marat's personality.In 1926-28, Artaud ran theAlfred JarryTheater, along withRoger Vitrac. He produced and directed original works by Vitrac, as well aspieces byClaudelandStrindberg. The theatre advertised that they would produce Artaud's play

in their 1926-1927 season,but it was never mounted and was not premiered until 40 yearslater. The Theater was extremely short-lived, but was attended byan enormous range of European artists, includingAndré Gide,Arthur Adamov, andPaul Valéry. In 1931 Artaud saw Balinese dance performed at the Paris ColonialExposition. Although he did not fully understand the intentions andideas behind traditional Balinese performance, it influenced many of his ideas for Theatre. Also during this year, the 'First Manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty' was published inLa Nouvelle Revue Française which would later appear as a chapter in 'The Theatre and ItsDouble'. In 1935, Artaud's production of his adaptation of Shelley's

premiered.

The Cenci

was a commercial failure, althoughit employed innovative sound effects—including the first theatricaluse of the electronic instrument theOndes Martenot--and had a setdesigned byBalthus.After the production failed, Artaud received a grant to travel toMexico, he met his first (Mexican) Parisian friend, the PainterFederico Cantú. in 1936 where he gave lectures on the decadenceof Western civilization. He also studied and lived with the Tarahumaran peopleand experimented withpeyote, recording his

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This whole piece is taken directly from Wikipedia, word for word. Seriously? I'm very disappointed.

reply08 / 09 / 2010