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Four Texts

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1982, Panjandrum Books, Inc. 99 pages

99 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1982

35 people want to read

About the author

Antonin Artaud

282 books799 followers
French surrealist poet and playwright Antonin Artaud advocated a deliberately shocking and confrontational style of drama that he called "theater of cruelty."

People better knew Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, an essayist, actor, and director.

Considered among the most influential figures in the evolution of modern theory, Antonin Artaud associated with artists and experimental groups in Paris during the 1920s.

Political differences then resulted in him breaking and founding the theatre Alfred Jarry with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Together, they expected to create a forum for works to change radically. Artaud especially expressed disdain for west of the day, panned the ordered plot and scripted language that his contemporaries typically employed to convey ideas, and recorded his ideas in such works as Le Theatre de la cruaute and The Theatre and Its Double .

Artaud thought to represent reality and to affect the much possible audience and therefore used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound, and other performance elements.

Artaud wanted that the "spectacle" that "engulfed and physically affected" this audience, put in the middle. He referred to this layout like a "vortex," a "trapped and powerless" constantly shifting shape.

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Mitch.
159 reviews30 followers
July 31, 2007
Clayton Eshleman's translations, which are good enough, but not the best...except in the case of the gran finale, To Have Done With the Judgement of God, in which Artaud takes on the deity, eyeball to eyeball. Unbelievable piece, and Eshleman gets this one just right. Masterful, screaming batshit blasphemy! Dig!
Profile Image for Lisa.
300 reviews
December 20, 2009
Antonin Artaud: Four Texts by Antonin Artaud (1982)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews

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