Antonin Artaud'd Radical Manifesto

Abstract

Theater as Cultural Catastrophe and Healing

A collection of writings by the French poet, actor and theorist, Antoine Artaud, “Theatre and Its Double”, which includes the seminal essays “Theatre and Cruelty” and “Theatre and Culture,” represents a total rejection of the Western, word-oriented theatrical paradigm. Artaud views theater not as an entertainment or intellectual institution but as a sacred, ritual and cathartic act. His goal is to destroy the European psychological theater and return art to its primordial, mythological origins.

“Theatre and Culture”: A Critique of Western Civilization

 In “Theatre and Culture” Artaud establishes a sharp opposition between artificial civilization and living, organic culture. According to Artaud, the Western world is sick with formalism. People have created a “museum” understanding of culture, cut off from the energy of life. Theater has become a psychological existence where people listen to gossip and social problems from the stage. Artaud uses the ingenious metaphor of the Black Death. The plague is a force that destroys social masks, exposes a person’s subconscious and forces him to see himself without illusions. This is exactly what real theater should be like – a crisis that either turns the human soul upside down or kills it.