Dina Nabil

Modern Drama
Fall 2014

Artaudian Theatre

Despite his mental disturbance and inability to utter verbal language, Antonin
Artaud wrote a marvellous book, namely, The Theatre and Its Double, which is
considered one of the twentieth-century breakthroughs in modern theatre. The book is
written in puzzling perplexing prescriptions; "[c]ritics have remarked how difficult it
is to understand his concepts; just when one thinks one has, they tend to disappear
into the air."(Cooper 277). Artaud was a French avant-garde poet, playwright, actor
and theatre director; nevertheless, due to his mental disturbance, he lost the capacity
of uttering verbal language, for words die out before reaching the crust of his skull.
The word, thus, lost its value. During his lifetime, Artaud was never recognized as a
valuable theatrical innovator. In addition to low shattered spirit generated after World
War II, being locked in an asylum and having his writings untranslated put him in a
voluntary exile-like status. His life, hence, "could be likened to a journey through a
'darkness pierced occasionally by flashes of brilliant light" (260). In 1938, Artaud
published his well-known book, The Theatre and Its Double, which is a collection of
essays and manifestoes. In his book, Artaud thinks that art is a reflexive mirror of life;
therefore, Artaud uses the metaphoric term, "double", to refer to life; "if theatre is the
double of life, life is the double true theatre" (quoted in Cooper 262). His two
manifestoes namely, "Theatre of Cruelty" have great impact on modern drama such as
in Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, Sarah Kane's Cleansed and other artefacts.

Artaud was much influenced by Nietzsche's philosophy and particularly its

manifestation in drama, as Nietzsche had formerly proclaimed in his The Birth of
Tragedy. According to Nietzsche, "the human race was composed of these two
opposing elements: on the one hand the Apollonian man- rational and reasoning- and
on the other the Dionysian man- irrational and passionate" (277). As for Artaud, this
duality exists in the core of drama, but as for him, he mostly favoured the Dionysic
level, which is "the darker, more violent side of human nature." Theatre, he assumes,
ceases to act like the function of food to human veins, but it ought to pursue the inner
world of human psyche. "By doing so, he hoped to show the world through his
distorting mirror as essentially irrational and passionate." (277). In this regard,
Artaudian theatre seems ritual; "For Artaud, ritual involved a carefully worked out
scenario with staging elements that by their visual and aural power would present a
controlled sense of danger in their performance" (261). Thus, Artaud's theatre belongs
 Dina Nabil
Modern Drama
Fall 2014

to theatre of commitment, which blurs the distance between the audience and the
actors, to share the same space.

Since verbal language has lost its value, expression thus ought to be outside
words. Artaud introduces in his theatre the plastic language or the physical language.
He says in his manifesto: "We can define this language as expressive, dynamic spatial
potential in contrast with expressive spoken dialogue potential" (Artaud 68). In that
sense, Artaud introduces the total theatre, "derived from Richard Wagner's concept of
a Gesamtkunstwerka", meaning, a "collected", "united", "whole" or "total artwork"
(Rafaat 138). Artaud says in his manifesto: "Practically speaking, we want to bring
back the idea of the total theatre, where theatre will recapture from cinema, music
hall, the circus and life itself (Artaud 66). Total theatre entails the totality of art, where
all arts intersect, and eventually entails the totality of life. Total theatre also addresses
the totality of senses through "its resources of signification: dance, music, volume,
depth of plasticity, visible images, sonority, phonicity, etc" (Scheer 70). In breaking
with Western traditional theatre, Artaud develops his theory on theatre, producing
what is known as Theatre of Cruelty, Théâtre de la Cruauté. Jean Louis Barrault was
the direct connection between Artaud and modern avant-garde theatre; Barrault's
"work extends the more technical aspects of the Theatre of Cruelty to form a 'total
theatre' based on Artaud's concept of the actor as an 'athlete of emotions'" (Innes 111).
Cruelty is not limited to physical violence; "Cruelty, he pointed out, did not mean
'blood' or 'the cruelty we can exercise upon each other by hacking at each other's
bodies" (quoted in Rafaat 136-137). Yet, it goes deeply inside the human psyche to
shake the very essence and core of the audience through experiencing unexpected
emotions. Consequently, spectators ought to respond to such scenes by feeling
responsible towards violence in the world, and eventually are urged to change it; it is
not just an involvement of their mind, but all their senses and flesh as well.

As a result of former assumptions, Artaud has laid much emphasis on sound

effects as a means of having the audience deeply involved and arouse their inner
senses. "Music and musical instruments also played a part in the "mise- en- scene";
the audience eventually falls under the spell of charming music or the other way
around, "a new scale in the octave (producing) an unbearable piercing sound or noise"
(Cooper 270), especially those created in a sadistic environment. Peter Weiss's
Marat/Sade is a play within a play; it is a play supposedly written by the sadistic
Marquis de Sade for inmate actors, in tableau-like scenes, in Charenton Asylum,
about the murderer of Jean-Paul Marat. The play is written in rhyming couplets ready
 Dina Nabil
Modern Drama
Fall 2014

to be sung, for example, the Herald says introducing Jean Paul Marat: "Already seated
in his place/ here is Marat observe his face/ Fifty years old and not yet dead/ he wears
a bandage around his head". In addition to this, the idea of the chorus, which is an
ancient element of Greek drama, is celebrated in the play in the four inmate singers,
Kokol, Polpoch, Cucurucu, and Rossignol. This chorus interrupts the scenes and
comment on the action, which enables the audience to judge the action. Moreover,
five inmate musicians play harmonium, lute, flute, trumpet and drums. Music, in this
concern adds to the dream-like atmosphere, about which Artaud describes: "it
provides the audience with truthful distillations of dreams." The inmate atmosphere in
Charenton Asylum of a prison-like appearance and the swaying movements of the
inmate actors are all elements of the dream-like condition, which is interrupted every
now and then with actors' screams.

The dream-like atmosphere appears in Sarah Kane's drama, as she was

genuinely inspired by Artaud's theories on Theatre of Cruelty. In her Cleansed, Kane
creates the dream-like atmosphere by the drug addicts' numbed hallucinating
condition. Similar to Marat/Sade, the setting in Kane's play, which is the university,
seems more like an asylum of a prison-like appearance. Verbal language is very
limited; it is rather fragmented and constructed in a montage mode, in favour of
physical performance. That is to say, "Artaud suggested that communication had to
shed aspects of dialogue- what he called 'written poetry'- and that actors should use a
new 'bodily language', no longer based on words but on signs"(Cooper 275).
Therefore, alarming panic voices of beating and shrilling squeaks of rats add to severe
sentiment of cruelty imposed on the audience. Moreover, Artaud "suggested the
scream as a primal experience of freeing the actor."(271), as in traditional theatre
actors have forgotten how to scream and set their profound feelings free. Highly
distinguished colourful rooms in the university seem perplexing and enigmatic to the
audience, particularly when changes of the colours shift in an abrupt manner. Lighting
also serves as a 'force' in physical performance through 'optic shock'. The final line of
Kane's play summarizes the whole idea, "The sun gets brighter and brighter, the
squeaking of the rats louder and louder, until the light is blinding and the sound
deafening". Thus, sound and light effects intensify cruelty- elements.

Cruelty as previously stated does not depend on psychological severe effect on

the audience, but it relays upon physical violence. Artaud assumes that characters are
to be grouped in two parties of four, fighting each other to a 'real' killing- level. Such
ideas seemed insane and void of logic, so they were initially unaccepted.
 Dina Nabil
Modern Drama
Fall 2014

Nevertheless, Artaud gives a way out to this dilemma, via what is know as the super-
marionette, firstly introduced by the major Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais. Le
Grande Guignol, as Artaud calls it, is a puppet of live-size, which acts the violent
scenes of fighting, killing, severing and cutting limbs off. In this case, actors should
act and move like puppets in a harmonized dream-like manner as previously
highlighted. Le Grande Guignol has certain Artaudesque features distinguishing it:

a) supper puppets which are larger than human beings to reveal the hidden
sides of Man as well as the different roles in life; b) the plastic arts in
staging, provided with animated objects, animals, dismembered mummies,
and symbolic props; c) automatic writing which is full of repetition
repartee, hallucination, all kinds of sounds: from human cries to animal
vocal grunts. (Rafaat 154)
The very essence of le Grande Guignol is the dehumanization of characters which is a
metaphor of the grotesque nature of mankind in modern era. It is, thus, a means of
expressing different kinds of cruelty.

Accordingly, in Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade, the use in Le Grande Guignol

appears in the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday. On her side,
Corday is an inmate suffering from sleep sickness and is urged to murder Marat who
never leaves his bathtub due to his serious skin disease. On that scene, Corday stabs
Marat with the knife causing his death. Such a scene could not be performed,
according to Artaud, without the Le Grande Guignol acting Marat's role. Such action
triggers the inmates to riot inside the asylum delivering sense of responsibility on the
audience's side, particularly since the play focuses on the French Revolution and its
slogans.

Violence is broadly celebrated in Sarah Kane's Cleansed in mostly all scenes.

Tinker, the most enigmatic character in the play, keeps acting in a god-like attitude, or
rather like an authoritative figure, watching and violently controlling the other
characters while keeping himself emotionally apart. Tinker is called a doctor
throughout the play though he was just a dealer not a healer; he injects Graham beside
his eye with overdose drugs causing his death. In Carl and Rod's case, he distorts any
means of expressing love; he cuts off Carl's tongue, then his hands, the left of which
rats eat, and finally his feet. Even when Rod expresses his loyalty in the end, Tinker
cut his throat. Such aggressive scenes could not be performed with the exact
impression of severing limbs without the use of Le Grande Guignol. Kane's play
 Dina Nabil
Modern Drama
Fall 2014

enhances darker sadism in a hurricane-like ambience through current disappointments

held via violence. Tinker burns Robin's flower which he intended to present for Grace,
asks him to urinate on the books and burn them while Grace watches absent-
mindedly. Cutting Grace's breasts off and giving her Carl's genitals could not be acted
with real human beings; Le Grande Guignol, thus, serves such situations. Le Grande
Guignol, here, reflects the dehumanization imposed on people, who have to let go
with their ambitions, hope and love.

By and large, Antonin Artaud has exerted profound impact on modern theatre.
Despite his mental disturbances, he was capable of providing modern drama with new
theories and techniques. He translates his lack of verbal expression into action
presenting Theatre of Cruelty which had a strong influence on landmark playwrights.
His theory about Total Theatre transmitted the theatre from a traditional entertaining
media into a doubling- image for life itself and its cruelty imposed on mankind. Le
Grande Guignol is a remarkable addition Artaud has represented after being forgotten
for a long time. As a way out, Le Grande Guignol is used instead of real actors to act
severe and cruel scenes. Lastly, Artaudesque partakes in inviting the audience to delve
into theatre via addressing the very deep senses, which eventually advocates them to
act positively towards changing the world.

Works Cited:

Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double. 1970.

Cooper, Simon. Sally Mackey. Drama and Theatre Studies. Nelson Thornes. 2000.

Innes, Christopher. Holy Theatre: Ritual and Avant Garde. Cambridge University
Press. 1984.

Raafat, Zeinab M. Studies in Modern Drama, Antonin Artaud's Theatre. Beirut Arab
University. 1975.

Scheer, Edward. Antonin Artaud: A Critical Reader. Routledge. 2014.