A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938, in which the French artist and philosopher attacks conventional assumptions about the drama, and calls for the influx of irrational material - based on dreams, religion, and emotion - in order to make the theater vital for modern audiences.
I am the man," wrote Artaud, "who has best charted his inmost self." Antonin Artaud was a great poet who, like Poe, Holderlin, and Nerval, wanted to live in the infinite and asked that the human spirit burn in absolute freedom. To society, he was a madman. Artaud, however, was not insane but in luciferian pursuit of what society keeps hidden. The man who wrote Van Gogh the Man Suicided by Society raged against the insanity of social institutions with insight that proves more prescient with every passing year. Today, as Artaud's vatic thunder still crashes above the "larval confusion" he despised, what is most striking in his writings is an extravagant lucidity. This collection gives us quintessential Artaud on the occult, magic, the theater, mind and body, the cosmos, rebellion, and revolution in its deepest sense.
Published here in its entirety in English, Artaud's Revolutionary Messages collects Antonin Artaud's political, aesthetic and philosophical writings during his travels to Mexico in 1936. Written around the same time as his seminal work The Theatre and its Double, it captures a crucial point in Artaud's life shortly before he was admitted to a mental asylum in which he was to spend a significant part of his later life. Revolutionary Messages contains conferences that Artaud gave at the University of Mexico, articles from the daily Mexican newspaper El Nacional Revolucionario and a study of three seminal artists of the time influenced by or from Mexico: Franz Hals, Ortiz Monasterio and Maria Izquierdo. Not only will you gain crucial insight into Artaud's time in Mexico and his vision of a “total revolution,” which he places in distinction to Marxist and Surrealist conceptions of revolution, but you will deepen your understanding of the philosophical roots of his theatrical project, which ultimately shaped modern theatre and dance. The publication includes an introduction by the translator, Joel White, and a preface by Professor of European Philosophy, Howard Caygill.
This resource collects for the first time some of the best criticism on Artaud's life and work from writers such as Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Maurice Blanchot, Herbert Blau, Leo Bersani and Susan Sontag. Antonin Artaud was one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century. His writing influenced entire generations, from the French post-structuralists to the American beatniks. He was a key figure in the European cinema of the 1920s and '30s, and his drawings and sketches have been displayed in some of the major art galleries of the Western world. Possibly best known for his concept of a 'theatre of cruelty', his legacy has been to re-define the possibilities of live performance. Containing some of the most intellectually adventurous and emotionally passionate writings on Artaud, this book is essential reading for Artaud scholars working in arts disciplines including theatre, film, philosophy, literature and fine art.
In The Theatre and Its Double, first published in 1938, Antonin Artaud puts forward his radical theories on drama and theatre, which he saw as being stifled by conservatism and a lack of experimentation. Containing the famous manifestos of the 'Theatre of Cruelty', this collection of essays analyses the underlying impulses of performance, provides suggestions on a physical-training method for actors, and features a long appreciation of the expressive values of Eastern dance drama. This new English translation of Artaud's canonical text by Mark Taylor-Batty retains the idiosyncratic nature of the author's writing, communicating its fervour and ambition, while achieving a much-needed clarity. Through doing so, it facilitates a fuller appreciation of Artaud's artistic objectives and the original context in which they grew, aided by a newly translated set of his notes and drafts, and a selection of letters to his publisher, friends and associates concerning the book's genesis and the evolution of the concept of a 'Theatre of Cruelty'. The commentary further contextualizes this material within Artaud's broader oeuvre, from his collaboration with the Surrealist group through to his plans to stage his own adaptation of Percy Shelley's Les Cenci in 1935. A welcome addition to any theatre-lover's or student's bookshelf, this translation of Artaud's classic text offers clear and faithful insights into Artaud's theatre.
First published in 1938, The Theatre and Its Double is a collection of essays detailing Antonin Artaud's radical theories on drama and theatre, which he saw as being stifled by conservatism and lack of experimentation.Containing the famous manifestos of the 'Theatre of Cruelty', the collection analyses the underlying impulses of performance, provides some suggestions on a physical-training method for actors and actresses, and features a long appreciation of the expressive values of Eastern dance drama.
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