Follow-up from Patrick - Theatre of Cruelty

Many thanks to David for his posting and explanation of the "theatre ofcruelty," which was clear, succinct, and sensible. It prompted me to go to the source, Antonin Artaud, and what I found in his "No More Masterpieces" was both good and not so good.To begin positively, it's always a good idea, I think, to bring Shakespeare downa notch: "Shakespeare himself is responsible for this aberration and decline,this disinterested idea of the theater which wishes a theatrical performance toleave the public intact, without setting off one image that will shake theorganism to its foundations and leave an ineffaceable scar." Out of context, Imight agree with him (considering how, were William around today, I wouldn't besurprised to find him voting Republican) but Artaud's context is one ofdecrying plays that probe human pyschology, something he dates back to theRenaissance, with its emphasis on "purely descriptive and narrativetheater---storytelling pyschology." He elaborates, "If in Shakespeare, a manis sometimes preoccupied with what transcends him, it is always in order todetermine the ultimate consequences of this preoccupation with him, i.e.pyschology." Artaud attributes to this tendency the theatre's "abasement andits fearful loss of energy" and finds that "both the theater and we ourselveshave had enough of psychology." It's worth considering, and I wonder whatothers make of this."But this is not our most serious concern." Artaud goes after, among otherthings, art for art's sake (his essay is from the late 30's), what he calls"detached art," and written poetry ("Written poetry is worth reading once, andthen should be destroyed") because these things have made artifacts (my word)of art, when instead, the "action" of art (as in great live theater) "is nevermade the same way twice." According to Artaud, "It is a question of knowingwhat we want." Given his low regard for the public, though, I'm not sure which'we' he intends.As for the not so good: Artaud, it seems, is a bit of nut. (And he doesn'twrite so well, either.) At the same time that he wants to eschew "masterpieces"(because they are static) he wants to return "by present day means to thissuperior idea of poetry and poetry-through-theater which underlies Myths [hiscapitalization] told by the ancient Greek tragedians . . . " Now, I realizehe's calling new writing instead of revivals. Still, I wonder why he resortsto these paradigms if it weren't inherently true that "masterpieces" havesomething to show us.What Artaud wants is a kind of religious experience akin to voodoo: "I proposeto return through the theater to an idea of the physical knowledge of imagesand the means of inducing trances . . . " We are taught that the ancientsaccomplished this at Delphi. And while improvisation and extemporaneity and"magical mimesis of a gesture" account for much of voodoo's (and greattheatre's) power, these are achieved in each instance with existing"texts"--not to mention rituals.Great art of any sort must break through a duality: of form(s) both fixed andfluid. Artaud weighs in heavily on the latter, but as if this weren't informedby the former. His essay is an example. Did he intend to utter it once andleave it at that? If so, why write it down at all