Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty

Abstract

‘A true theatrical work disturbs the senses in repose, liberates the repressed unconscious, foments a virtual revolt … and imposes both a heroic and difficult attitude on the assembled collectivity.’¹ So wrote Antonin Artaud in 1933. The father of the revolutionary theatre of cruelty, Artaud wanted to do away with the traditional theatre, whose nuclear elements were words, well-made plots, psychologically oriented and rationally understandable characters.