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  • Artaud, No More Masterpieces

    Transféré par

    Olaf Eide
    161 vues10 pages
    His work changed our view of theatre, and our application of art. This treatise describes what the theatre was to Artaud, what it could be, and what it SHOULD be. He describes application of his theories in discourse, literature, and application, in hopes to inspire a new era of theatre, which achieves to its highest capability, magic.

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    His work changed our view of theatre, and our application of art. This treatise describes what the theatre was to Artaud, what it could be, and what it SHOULD be. He describes application of his theories in discourse, literature, and application, in hopes to inspire a new era of theatre, which achieves to its highest capability, magic.

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    161 vues10 pages

    Artaud, No More Masterpieces

    Transféré par

    Olaf Eide
    His work changed our view of theatre, and our application of art. This treatise describes what the theatre was to Artaud, what it could be, and what it SHOULD be. He describes application of his theories in discourse, literature, and application, in hopes to inspire a new era of theatre, which achieves to its highest capability, magic.

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
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    DRAMATIC THEORY AND CRITICISM Greeks to Grotowski BERNARD F. DUKORE ‘nteaty of Hawa 76 Nintenth: end Twentieth Century Frans, lly, and Spain day when the magnificent mine is worked ovt. Such, for instance, has been the fate of the romanticnaturalistic novel and theatre. It is @ naive eror to believe thatthe present infecundity of theze two genres is de to ack of talent, What happens ie thatthe posible combinations within these literary forme are ezhauted. It most be deemed fortunate that this station coin cides with the emergence of «new artistic sensibility capable of detecting ther untouched veins. ‘When we analyze the new syle we find that it contains certain closely connected tendencies, It tends (1) to dchunanize at, (2) to avoid living forms, (3) to ae tot thatthe work of att is nothing but a work of at, (4) to consider arta play and nothing cle, (5) tobe etentially ironical, (6) to ‘beware of sham and hence to aspire to scrupulous realization, (7) to regard at a a thing of no transcending consequence. ‘But whatever their shortcomings, the young artists have to be granted ‘one point; there no turning back. All the doubts cst upon the inspiration (of those pioneers may be justified, and yet they provide no sufcient reason {or condemning them. The objections would have to be supplemented by tomething posite: a suggestion of another way for art diferent from de Inuminization and yet aot coincident withthe beaten and worn-out paths, Tee eaty to protest that iti always possible to produce art within the bounds of given tradition. But thi comforting phrase is of no use to the ast who, pen or chisel in hand, sits waiting for 4 concrete inspiration. Antonin Artaud 195-155 No More Masterpieces 1933 (One ofthe reasons for the aphyxiting atmosphere in which we lve with- ‘out posible escape or remedy-and in which we all shate, even the most revolutionary among uss or respect for what has been writen, formulated, ‘or pated, what hat Deen given form, as if all expression were not at st om Assia Aitnd, The These and Its Deule. New Yor, Gre Pres Rept ty vermont Grove Pres. Inc. Trait hom the Frew by MT Gite Rice Copa ©1958 hy Grove Be, thawte, ween Stat snow and be ‘Wermos have elite and nt unde Siti ar thon Masterpieces of We have the ee Sid ins ay Oat ‘ponding to pee Tei adote tor when the stn which ae moreoe eniemporry pal By hat tis He a Ip Osdipus Rex rock at moi ‘Se would dowel we ‘Therein at inemation of tee Ive ast al ouch ‘peaks pany per oo veined or he Hower, «pat sethuakey,plgues seat of foe ae Some ate ofthe age, ond that hk Stuteatd tapping, ive sin Totay as yesterday soe aaa he ve pops the 32 Tet ete tne eshte and recone 2 eesion det no iat al wort, once hn they ae tere, td aks only to beh Plc in the wold whe ‘ey tice 1 the pbc does ‘toe mastic are ‘no longer respond to t Antonin Artaud 78 exhausted, were not at a point whete things must beak apart if they ae to staré anew and begin fresh ‘We must have dove with ths idea of masterpieces reserved for a slfstyed elite and not understood by the general publi; the mind has no suc retited ists a thoe 0 often sed for clandestine sexual encounters ‘Masterpices ofthe past ate good forthe past: they are not good for ws, ‘We have the right to say what has beens and even what has not bern said in a way that belongs to us, a way tat is immediate and direct, core- sponding to present modes of feeling, and understandable to everyone. ts idiotic to reproach the mates for having no sense of the subline, when the soblime is cnfused with one or anther ofits formal manifestation, ‘which ate moreover always defunct manifestations. And if for example ¢ contemporary public oes not understand Oedipus Rex, I shall make bold to Say that i i Ue Gout of Oudipur Rex and not ofthe publi, In Oedipus Rex there & the Uneme of incest and the idea that nature ‘mocks at morality and that thee are certain unspcied powers at large which we would do well to leware of, call them destiny or anything you choose. ‘There i in ation the presence of a plague epidemic which isa physical incamation ofthese power. But the whole in a manner and language that Ihave ost al touch withthe rade and epileptic shythm of our time. Sophocks speaks grandly perhaps, but in syle tht en longer timely, His language 1s too reine for this age iti a8 if he were speaking beside the point. However, a public tht shudders at tsin wneck, that is familiar with carthquakes, plagues, revolutions, wars, that is sensitive to the disordered anguish of love canbe affected by all these grand notions and asks ony to become aware of them, but on condition that i is addressed in its own ln svage, and that is Knowledge ofthese things does not come to it through ‘Adalterated trappings and speech that belong to extinct ers which will never ive again. “Today as yesterday, the public is greedy for mystery: it asks only to be: come aware of the las according to which destiny manifeetsitelf,and 10 divine perhaps the seaet ofits apparitions. Let vs leave tertil criticism to graduate students, formal enti so ‘esthetes, and recognize that what has been suid isnot stil to be sid; that ‘an expresion does not have the same value twice, dots nat live two Lives, that all words, once spoken, are dead and function only at the moment ‘when they are uttered, that @ form, once it hs served, cannot be used ag sand asks only to be replaced by another, nd that the theater is the ony place in the world where a gesture, once made, can never be made the same vay twice If the public doesnot frequent our litemry masterpieces, itis becawe ‘hose masterpieces are literary, that isto say, feed; and fred in forms that no longer respond to the needs of the time, 762 Nintenth- and Twentith Century Frene, lah, and Spain Fr from blaming the public, we ought to blame the formal screen we lnterpose between ursehes andthe public, and this new form of idalaty, the idolatry of fixed masterpieces whichis one ofthe aspects of bourges conformism. "This conformism makes us confuse sublimity, ides, and things with the forms they have taken in time and in our minds—in ear snobbish, precious, ‘thetic mentalities which the pablic does not undestand, How pointless in such matters to accuse the public of bud taste because it relishes insnitis, so long as the public is not shown a valid spectacle; and defy anyone to show me here a spectacle vali—vald in the supreme sense ofthe theatsince the lst great romantic melodrams, ie, since 4 handed yeas ago. ‘The publi, which takes the false for the tm, has the sense of the true and always responds to it when it 8 manifested, However it not upon the stage that the tie isto be sought nowadays, but inthe street and if the {cov inthe street is offered an occasion to show its human digaty, it wil always do 20, IE people are out ofthe habit of gong to the theatre if we have all finaly come to think of theatre as an inferior art, a means of popolar distraction, and tous it as an outlet for oor worst insists, i i beaise we have learned too well what the theatre has been, namely falehood and dlusion. Iti be- cause we have been accustomed for four hundred years, that is since the Renaisance, to a purely descriptive and narative thaitie—storytelling pay chology; itis because every possible ingenuity has bee exerted in Brigg to life on the stage plausible but detached beings, withthe spectacle on one Side, the public on the other—and because the publi s no longer show anything but the minor of ite. Shakespeare himsel i responsible for this aberation and dedline, this lsinterested idea of the theatre which wishes a theacal performance leave the public intact, without setting of one image that wil shake the ‘organism to its foundations and leave an inefaceable seer, in Shakespeare, a mem ie sometimes prececupied with what transcends him, its alvays in onder to determine theultimate consequences of this preoccupation within him, ie, poychology Paychology, which work relentesly to veduce the unknown tothe known, to the quotidian and the ordinary, isthe cause of the theat’s abascment ‘and its fearal loss of enegy, which seems to me to have reached its lowest Point. And I think both the theatre end we ourselves have had enough of archology [belive furthermore thet we can all agree on this matter suficiently 50 that there is no need to descend to the repugnant level ofthe modern and French theatre to condemn the theatre of pychology ‘Stores about money, wory over money, socal caretrsm, the pangs of love unspoiled by « lost its mystery haw to paychology. The nothing but Pepin rot tums to sevolut But this isnot o If Shakespeare ay for art's sake, with this feeble and lazy sre too many signs does 20, that ve are This idea of a d distact our lasure, Dower to caste (ur lterary admin which has drten te belongs to thir iden activity which erate that at the vey mor only the man who er inits most abusive fa poets who have neve ‘ficacity, nor 9f dan We mast get sido Witten poet is wor ‘dead poets mate way ‘ur veneration for & valid it may bs, th from making contact life force, the dete Beneath the posty of without tex And jor certain tribes is exhat except museum=—20t and the eficaciy of permit the action of w made the same way It a question of Plague, famine, and sle sontinue as we ae; ct such and such asnger, never transcends the 1¢ fits splendor fever t Antonin Artaud 763 love unspoited by altruism, sexality sugarcoated with an eroticism tha: has Toate mystery have nothing todo with the teat, even if they do belong to psychology. These torments, sections, and lusty before which we ate nothing but Peeping Toms gratifying our cravings, tend to go bad, and thir tot tums to revolution: we must take thi nto account, Bat this isnot our mot serous concer, 1 Shakespeare and his imitators have gradually insinuated the idea of art for ars sake, with art on one side and life on the other, we can rat on this feeble and lary idea only a lng as the life ouside endures, But there se too many signs that everything that sed to sustain oor ies no longer oes 20, that we are all mad, desperate, and sick. And call for us to att. ‘This idea of a detached at, of poctry as a charm which exists only to dlstact our leisure, is a decadent ides and an unmistakable symptom of ott power to strate, (Our literary admiration for Rimbaud, Jay, Lavtséamont, and afew otters, which fas driven two men to suicide, but tamed into café gossip fr the et, Delonge to this idea of literary poety, of detached at, of neutral spirtual sctivty which erates nothing nd produces nothing; and I can bear witness that atthe very moment whea that kind of pesonal poetry which involves conly the man who creates it and ony at the moment he erate it broke ovt in its most abusive fthion, the theate was scored more than ever befor by poets who have never had the sense of diet and concerted action, ncr of ‘Bicacity, nor of danger. ‘We must get sd of our supentitious valuation of text and writtn postr. ‘Written poetry is worth reading once, and then shoul be destroyed. Let the dead pocts make way for other. Then we might even come to see that tis four veneration for what has akeady been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petries us, deadens our responses, and prevent ts from making contact with that undedying power, eal it thoughtenexpy, the lie free, the determinism of change, lnar menses, or anything you lke Beneath the poetry ofthe teats, there isthe actual postr, without form and without text. And jst asthe eflcacity of masks in the magic practice of certain tribes is exhausted~and these masis are no longer good for anything ‘except maseums—so the poetic eficacity ofa texte exhautted yet the petty land the aicsity ofthe theatre are exhausted leat quiey of ally since Dey ermit the ation of what is gesticalted and pronounced, and which ie never made the same way twice. Tt is a question of knowing what we want. If we are prepared for ar, plague, famine, and slaughter we do not even need to sayz, we have onl ‘continue as we are; continue Behaving like snobs, rushing én mate to hear such and such a singer, to see such and such an admirable performance which ever transcends the realm of art (and even the Rossin ballet atthe heeght ofits splendor never transcended the realm of art), to marvel at such and TA Nintenth- and Twentieth Cent rene, Hl, and Spain such an exhibition of painting in which exciting shapes explode here and there but at random and without any genuine consciousness ofthe fores they could rouse, ‘This empiricsm, randomnes, individualism, and anarchy must cease, Enough of personal poems, beneftng tho who eteate them much more than those who read them Once and feral, enough ofthis cose, egoistie, and personal at ‘Our spintual anarchy and intelectual diorer i a function of the anarchy of everything ele—or rather, everthing else function ofthis anarchy Tam not one of those who blieve that cviization has fo change in order for the theatre to change; but I do believe that the theatre, uized in the highest and most cifult sense posible, as the power to inflence the ‘spect and formation of things: and the encounter upon the stage of two pasionate manifestations, two living centers, two nerous magnetisms is Something as entre, tre, even deasive, a ia Ie, the encounter of one epidermis with another ina timeless debauchery: ‘That is why T propose a theater of cru: With this mania we all have for depreciating everthing as son as I have sid “cruelty,” everybody will at onee take it to mean “blood” But “theatre of cruelty” means a theatre

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