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Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty'

Opposing Traditional Theatrical Conventions

Aug 29, 2008 Tuirenn Hurstfield

Postmodern performance has been shaped by theories that oppose the conventional. Artaud's contribution was to defy conventional theatre practices.

Philosopher and structuralist Friedrich Nietzsche considered language to be a key player in a ‘continual process of human self-deception’[i] and theatre artist Antonin Artaud shared this same scepticism towards language. What Artaud detested most about Western theatre was the use of dialogue; he asked why the West could not conceive a theatre that did not rely on dialogue alone.

Dialogue, for Artaud, was “something written and spoken – [that] does not specifically belong to the stage but to books.”[ii] Nietzsche believed that words are only useful in so much as that they simplify or ‘freeze’ the chaotic and complex surroundings of human society, but that that was all they could do. The use of dialogue in theatre was, to Artaud, simply a method of expressing ‘psychological conflicts’ on stage and therefore a tool in creating the ‘theatre of illusion’ in the Aristotelian concept.

Signifiers - Not Dialogue

It was the Eastern influences and his personal opinions that led Artaud to develop a style of performance that would depend more on atmosphere, gesture and space over dialogue. He wanted to remove the need of a playwright[iii] and create a language based on signs not words, a ‘physical language’ that stimulated and appealed to the senses thus liberating the cruelty aspect of his theatre.

Above all else Artaud felt that “the role of the theatre must be to shake us out of complacency and our delusion of security.”[iv] To achieve this Artaud believed in inverting the conventional semiotics of theatre – this opposed both language and ‘illusionary’ meaning. By inverting a recognised convention the meaning is either removed or altered, he exemplifies: "We all agree a beautiful woman has a pleasing voice. Yet if when the world/began we heard all women call us by snorting … and greet us by trumpeting,/we would ever have associated the idea of trumpeting with the idea of a/beautiful woman…"[v]

This manner of inverting sign systems and meanings is often referred to as ‘deconstruction’, a term derived from the work of poststructuralist Jacques Derrida.

[i] Robinson D Nietzsche and Postmodernism p.17

[ii] Artaud A “Production and Metaphysics” in The Theatre and its Double p.27

[iii] ibid “Production and Metaphysics” p.42

[iv] ibid “Postface (by John Calder)” p.104

[v] ibid “Production and Metaphysics” p.31

The copyright of the article Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' in Modern World Theatre is owned by Tuirenn Hurstfield. Permission to republish Artaud's 'Theatre of Cruelty' in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.