Surrealism and Artaud - Grade: 2.1 PDF

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Surrealism and Artaud

Artaud was the main creator of the Theatre of Cruelty movement that started in the early 20th century as an opposition to the generic and normal ways that theatre was made. Surrealism started in paris in 1920 and was inspired by the Dadaist movement. It was also inspired on Sigmund Freud's theories on dreams and the unconscious, and the ways in which they wanted to create a fragmented sense of reality. Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty aimed to be a break from traditional western styles of theatre, therefore influenced by surrealism as he aimed to awaken the dormant dream images of our minds. Artaud wanted to appeal to the irrational mind and not one that has been sculpted by society. These are similar to the aims of Breton, who which influenced Artaud greatly in the Surrealist movement. Artaud and Breton worked together in the movement for years, until issues arose where they had differed opinions. Breton believed that dreams were a fabrication of the mind, where as Artaud believed they were as real as life and that our subconscious was being oppressed by society. Artaud states “How hard is it, when everything encourages us to sleep, though we may look about us with conscious, clinging eyes, to wake and yet look about us as in a dream, with eyes that no longer know their function and whose gaze is turned inward” (Artaud,Theatre and it’s Double, p. 353) Artaud and Breton had different views when it came to a dream like reality. Here Artaud describes how everything is mundane and forces you to be tired and sleep, and when you dream sometimes it is hard to know if it is real or not so therefore dreams must be a real sense of reality. Different from the surrealist movement, Artaud wanted to have a horrific and emotional effect on his audience. He felt his work should shock and have audiences leave feeling as if they have had a truly cathartic experience and a purging of emotions. He states “Leave the caves of being. Come. The mind breathes outside the mind. The time has come to abandon your lodgings. Surrender to the Universal Thought.” (Antonin Artaud, “dinner is served”, p83”). This was also different to Breton’s work in the Surrealist movement, as he saw it as a more philosophical method of art than one to horrify people. Even though Surrealist art is created to shock, it wasn't in the way Artaud wanted it to be. Breton worked as a doctor in the war helping soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder and shell shock and used art as a sort of therapy. He found that breaking away from reality could help victims of war. Breton also experimented with automatic writing, a way to let the unconscious mind take over and control what words come out. This strongly appealed to Artaud as he thought the subconscious was the true thoughts of a person. Artaud believed in strong primal instincts and letting out whatever sickening thoughts people had instead of keeping them hidden away like we are instructed to do. Despite most of the differences Breton and Artaud had, Surrealism was a springboard that launched Artaud into the Theatre of Cruelty movement. Artaud took a lot of the ideology from the Surrealist movement but shaped it so that it had more of the effect he wanted. Artaud wanted to break the barrier between the performer and the audience, and wanted to include more outlandish props and technical design. He would use oversized props, a method influenced by surrealism in which having objects distorted in order to shock the audience, and extreme lighting changes in order to abuse the audiences senses. He would also use very animalistic movements and not use so much dialogue.

Artaud began to disagree with the western methods of theatre, much like the surrealist movement did, but he became more influenced by eastern styles of performing. In an account written byNicola Savarese and Richard Fowler, they discuss how Artaud went to see some Balinese dancers in paris and how it effected him. He was intrigued by the fine tuned movements, and how their eyes never leave you. They write: “Artaud wanted to use Balinese theatre as both example and confirmation of something which he had become convinced during that period: that theatre should have its own language. a language that is not the same language of words but which is based on an actors physicality”. (“Antonin Artaud Sees Balinese Theatre at the Paris Colonial Exposition”, Nicola Savarese). Artaud wrote a review almost as soon as he saw the show and said “In fact the strange thing about all these gestures, these angular, sudden, jerky postures, these syncopated inflexions formed at the back of the throat, these musical phrases cut short (…), animated puppet dancing, is the feeling of a new bodily language no longer used on words but on signs which emerge through the maze of gestures, postures, airborne cries, through their gyrations and turns, leaving not even the smallest stage space unused” (Artaud, Review on Balinese dancers, 1938). André Breton defined Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought.” Here Breton is explaining how artists need to break the barrier of rationality and look deeper into the unconscious mind in order to create art. Although this is a lot of what Artaud did in terms of saying all of the inhumane things that come to you straight away, particularly seen in “A Jet of Blood” a play about rape, murder and incest, Artaud preferred to have more synchronised and refined movements in terms of performing, similar to the Balinese dancers. Actors that performed in Artaud’s shows had to be able to be pushed to the limits and be able to embrace the concept of having no barriers in the consciousness. In the Theatre and it’s Double, Artaud writes “I call for actors burning at the stakes, laughing at the flames”. This means that The Theatre of Cruelty has to have actors who are so in touch with the ideas of Artaud and surrealism that they can engage in automated thinking and being able to give the audience a cathartic experience. Artaud had hopes similar to Surrealism, that he could changer peoples thinking about art. He wanted people to find the theatre not an area for escape from the world, but the realisation of their worst nightmares and deepest fears. Although his views did seem sadistic at the time and not the traditional methods of surrealism, he explained that he wanted to give the audience a purging of emotions and by making such distorted and elaborate pieces of art, people could be free from how the world is a nightmarish place. Antonin writes “These terrifying forms which advance on me, I feel that the despair they bring is alive. It slips into this nucleus of life beyond which the paths of eternity extend. It is truly an eternal separation. They slip their knives into this center where I feel myself a man, they sever those vital ties which bind me to the dream of my lucid reality.” Here he discusses how the lines between reality and his unconscious are blurred, and how reality has its terrifying forms. By creating art that exposes peoples deepest fears, he felt he could there show them how your unconscious is just as real as reality. In summary, the Theatre of Cruelty movement was heavily influenced by Surrealism, with a darker and more primal twist supplied by Artaud. Despite all of the differences that were experienced by Artaud and Breton, their views were very similar up until their divide in 1927. Artaud took the foundations of Surrealism in terms of Unconscious mind and dreams, irrationality and automated thinking and writing, and created a new form of art that people would study and become a part of for years to come that had the basis idea of shocking

people out of a corrupt reality and making them realise what the world is like and enhancing their subconscious. word count: 1,365...