Artaud Lecture

8/9/2019 Artaud Lecture

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Antonin

Artaud1896-1948

This image by

Man Ray taken in1926


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Artaud in 1947


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1896 and all that Births of Andre Breton, Tristran Tzara

and Artaud (September 4)

premiere of Alfred Jarrys Ubu, OscarWildes Salome, Anton Checkhovs TheSeagull

first modern Olympics in Paris, death of Alfred Nobel and birth of the

prize Sigmund FreudsAetiology of Hysteria


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Artauds work letters theatre, art and film reviews and criticism, essays, texts on theatre, manifestoes, poems, screenplays

(notably 'La coquille et le clergyman' of 1927), a novel,translations from English texts by Lewis Carroll andShelley's 'The Cenci' fragments,

spells, sketches, portraits, recordings acting roles in cinema and on stage. There are 28 volumes of his Oeuvres Compltes in French

chez Gallimard.


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Artaud Chronology 1921 joins Thtre de lAtelier dir Charles Dullin 1922 actor and designer with Thtre de lAtelier 1923 joins Pitoeff at Comdie des hamps- Elyses in a

number of productions including Six Characters in Searchof an Author by Pirandello

Begins writing to Jacques Rivire, editor of NRF 1924 Fait Divers screen debut, LEvolution du dcor

published in Comoedia,joins the Surrealists 1925 Director of the Surrealist Research Bureau, shootingofNapoleon by Abel Gance.


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Artaud Chronology 1925 Sur le suicide inLe Disque Vert, no. 1 Textes surralistes, Rponse l'enqute sur le Suicide,

Rves, inLa Revolution Surraliste no. 2 L'activit du Bureau de recherches surralistes, Lettre

aux Recteurs des Universits Europennes, Adresse auPape, Adresse au Dalai-Lama, Lettre aux Mdecins-Chefs des asiles de fous, inLa Revolution Surraliste no.3

Le Pse-Nerfs, suivi de Lettres de mnage (couverture deAndr Masson), impr. de Leibovitz, Paris

L'Ombilic des Limbes, NRF Gallimard, Paris Nouvelle lettre sur moi-mme, in La Revolution

Surraliste no. 5


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Artaud Chronology 1926 L'Enclume des forces, Invocation la Momie;

pomes, inLa Revolution Surraliste no.7 Lettre la voyante, Uccello le poil, in La Revolution

Surraliste no. 8

Formation ofThtre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac andRobert Aron Expulsion from Surrealists 1927 A la grande nuit, ou le Bluff surrealiste, Paris

(l'auteur)

Correspondance avec Jacques Rivire, NRF, Gallimard,Paris


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Films

La Passion de Jeanne dArc (dir Carl Dreyer1927) Napoleon dir Abel Gance 1927


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La Passion de Jeanne dArc (dir Carl

Dreyer 1927)


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As Marat inNapoleon


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Artaud inLArgent


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Filmography 1920s1. Fait-divers (1923) dir. Claude Autant-Lara

2. Enfant roi, L' (1923) dir. Jean Kemm

3. Surcouf (1924) dir. Luitz-Morat

4. Juif errant, Le (1926) dir. Luitz-Morat....

Jacques Dupuis, dit Gringalet5. Graziella (1926) dir. Marcel Vandal

6. La Coquille et le Clergyman, (1927) dir.Germaine Dulac Screenwriter

7. Napoleon (1927) dir. Abel Gance.... Marat

(At least 19 diferent versions of the film exist)


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Filmography 1920s contd8. Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La (1928) dir. Carl

Dreyer.... Jean Massieu The Passion of Joan of Arc (Lapassion de Jeanne d'Arc) is widely regarded as Danish directorCarl Theodor Dreyer's finest achievement and one of the greatestfilms of all time. Dreyer recreates the trial and execution of St.

Joan with near-documentary authenticity. Hal Erickson, AllMovie Guide

9. Verdun, visions d'histoire (1928) dir. eonPoirier .... The Intellectuel

10. Argent, L' (1928) dir. Marcel L'Herbier....Mazaud based on a novel by Emile Zola, of the same title.


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Filmography 1930s11.Femme d'une nuit, La (1930) dir. Marcel L'Herbier....

Jaroslav

12.Tarakanova (1930) dir. Raymond Bernard.... Le jeunetzigane

13.Opera de quat'sous, L' (1931) dir. G.W. Pabst... aka The

Threepenny Opera (USA: literal English title)14.Faubourg Montmartre (1931) dir. Raymond Bernard....

Follestat

15.Mater dolorosa (1932) dir. Abel Gance.

16.Croix de bois, Les (1932) dir. Raymond Bernard ....Soldat Vieuble... aka Wooden Crosses (International:English title)

17. Coup de feu a l'aube (1932) dir. Serge de Poligny.... LeTrembleur

18.Enfant de ma soeur, L' (1933) dir. Henry Wulschleger ....Loche


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1930s contd19. Sidonie Panache (1934) dir. Henry Wulschleger

20. Napoeon Bonaparte (1934) dir. Abel Gance.....Marat. A re-edited version of Abel Gance's silentmasterpiece 'Napoleon (1927 )' , with sound efectsadded, dialogue post-dubbed by actors over the lip

movements of the original actors, and with new scenesfilmed with additional new cast members.

21. Liliom (1934) dir. Fritz lang..... Knife Grinder

Synopsis: Liliom, Ferenc Molnar's bittersweet fantasy play,was first filmed in Hollywood in 1930 later remade asCarousel.

22. Lucrece Borgia (1935) dir. Abel Gance .... Girolamo

Savonarola23. Konigsmark (1935) dir. Maurice Tourneur.... Cyrus

Back


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1930s 1931 Sees Balinese dance at Paris Colonial Exposition Treatment for drug addiction Lecture at Sorbonne: Mise en Scne and Metaphysics First Manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty inNRFNo. 229. April 1933 Lecture at Sorbonne: Theatre and the Plague 1935 The Cenci at Folies Wagram 1936 January - November in Mexico 1937 At Maison dArt in Brussels, marriage to Cecile

Schramme called off


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The Asylum Years August 1936 to Ireland September 1936 - May 1946 detained in asylums: Le

Havre, Saint Anne in Paris (1938-9), Ville Evrard in Seine

et Marne (1939-43), Rodez (1943-46) May 1946 Return to Paris Ivry sur Seine 13 Jan 1947 Lecture at Vieux Colombier May 1947 Writes Van Gogh the Suicide of Society

Sept- Dec To have Done with the judgement of God

March 4 1948 found dead


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7th February 1938Le Thatre et son Double,

Gallimard (collection 'Mtamorphoses'), Paris (The

Theatre and its Double) Key images/metaphors for the theatre: the plague, stage acting should be a delirium like the

plague, and should be infectious. (Le Thtre Et Son

Double p39) alchemy, Balinese dance, the Seraphim (the highest order

of angels) and even a Dutch painting Lot and His Daughters Lucas

Van Leyden 1520 Artaud describes his admiration for the transgressive

themes of incest and catastrophe in this image in hischapter 'La mise en scne et la metaphysique'.


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Oil on Wood

Completed in 1520Original dimensions:

34.0cm x 48.0cm (13.4in

x 18.9in) Original

Painting held in Louvre

Paris


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The Theatre of Cruelty: I use the word cruelty in the sense of hungering

after life, of cosmic rigour and of implacable

necessity... And the theatre in the sense of

constant creation and of a total magic actionobeying this necessity. (TD 159,60)

a dynamism never characterised, never situated,never defined, where perpetual invention is the

law (ibid 17)


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Theatre as Life The theatre must equate itself with life. Not with that

aspect of life where characters triumph but with a kindof liberated life which sweeps away individuality and

where man is only a reflection. (TD 180) Moreover, when we say the word life, one must

understand that its not a matter of life as recognised byexternal facts, but by that kind of frail, shifting sourcewhich forms never attain. And if there is stillsomething infernal and truly damned in these times, it

is this dithering artistically over forms, instead ofbeing like those tortured at the stake, signallingthrough the flames (from their pyres). (TD 19 -20)


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Theatre of the Real? This can be seen, for example, in the perilous presence of

living creatures onstage: live tarantulas in Jan FabresElletait et elle est, mme (1993), poisonous snakes in JanLauwerssAntonius und Cleopatra (1992), and, mostrecently, an entire colony of rats in aquariums in Marina

Abramovic and Charles AtlassDelusional (1994). the actors overexertion and exhaustion onstage For

instance, in Jan Fabres Who Shall Speak My Thought . . .(1993) Real physical exhaustion and pain have beenused in dance theatre as well, as a form ofauthentification.

Helga Finter Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre: The Legacy of theTheatre of Cruelty, trans. Matthew Griffin, TDR, 41. 4, Winter 1997, 15-40.


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Jacques Derrida:what is foreign to

the theatre of cruelty?

1. All non-sacred theatre.2. All theatre that privileges speech or rather the verb, all theatre of words3. All abstracttheatre An abstract theatre is a theatre in which the

totality of sense and the senses is not consumed.4. All theatre of alienation. Alienation only consecrates, with didactic

insistence and systematic heaviness, the non-participation of spectators(and even of directors and actors) in the creative act, in the irruptiveforce fissuring the space of the stage.

5. All nonpolitical theatre.6. All ideological theatre, all cultural theatre, all communicative,

interpretive theatre seeking to transmit a content, or to deliver a

messageJacques Derrida Le Thtre de la Cruaut et la Clture de larepresentation


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Jerzy Grotowski Grotowski returns us to the central challenge that Artaud's

theatre writings extend to practitioners, how to find the necessity of the gesture, to peel away the

strata of fictions and expose the raw impulse, the nervoussystem of performance.

From here, Grotowski suggests, the performer can goanywhere, even ultimately outside the theatrical itself. Justas Artaud could not finally constrain his ideas to thetheatrical frame, so Grotowski found his experiments less

and less in need of a validating audience. Like Artaud, hewould develop his rituals of transformation elsewhere.

Edward ScheerAntonin Artaud A Critical Reader


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Grotowski on Artaud the true lesson of the sacred theatre; whether we

speak of the medieval European drama, theBalinese, or the Indian Kathakali: this knowledge

that spontaneity and discipline, far fromweakening each other, mutually reinforcethemselves

Artaud puts forward the idea of great release, agreat transgression of conventions, a purification

by violence and cruelty Grotowski, J. (1968) Towards a Poor Theatre, trans. M. Buszewicz and J.

Barba, London: Methuen.


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Conceived as an art form at the juncture of othersignifying practices as varied as dance, music, painting ,

architecture and sculpture, performance seems

paradoxically to correspond to the new theatre invoked byArtaud. Josette Feral in Elizabeth Wright Postmodern Brechtpll5

Examples?


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Examples? La Fura dels Baus Jan Fabre (1958)Elle tait et elle est, mme (1993) Who Shall Speak My Thought . . . (1993) Guillermo Gomez-Pena andMuseum of Fetishized

Identities (July 2001) Ankoku Butoh: Dance of the dark soul Originators: Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ono Companies: Sankai juku, Mai juku, Dairakudakan Ankoku Butoh (the 'dance of the dark soul') has frequently

been compared with Artaud's ideas for a physical, anti-psychological, anti-textual performance practice


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Faites vous dArtaud Listen to the Sex Pistols Anarchy in the Ukat full volume Go to a Marilyn Manson concert or watch The Beautiful

People video with the sound down

Attend a butoh performance and watch closely

Watch a Marx Bros film Go to http://www.stelarc.va.com.au and follow all the links View any work by the Societas Raffaello Sanzio eg. The

Film Cycle of the Tragedia Endogonidia (a production of

the Societas Raffaello Sanzio) video memory by CristianoCarloni and Stefano Franceschetti Attend an exhibition of works by Mike Parr


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Artauds critique of representation is now echoed in the work of performance artists such as

Marina Abramovic, Stelarc, Mike Parr and in the surgical

interventions performed by Orlan all of whom provoke the

limit of the body and demonstrate the contingency of itsconstruction and its significance in culture. We read

Artauds trace in any aesthetic practice where actual bodily

changes are made by the performer as a gesture of defiance

of the notions of the socialised restriction of bodily

behaviours and of biology conceived of as destiny.(Scheer2009)


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Close the Concentration Camps:1-6pm on Saturday 15 June2002 at the Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne


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Kingdom Come. Or Punch Holes in the Body Politic

(April 8-10 2005)


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Water From The Mouth - a 10 day performance,

Artspace (April 26 - May 5, 2001).


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Artaud Self portrait May 1946


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The Theatre of Cruelty


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Self Portrait June 1947


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Self portrait Dec 1946


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Spell for Leon Fouks

Artaud Lecture

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