What do you understand by the expression ‘ the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’? What does Sontag mean by a ‘total art form’? Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’ (88)?
Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’ (88)?
To consider this question, one must distinguish between Artaud's understanding of the statement and ours today. For example, where-as 'violence' brings to mind negative connotations of cruelty and pain, the meaning of such words to Artaud was far more complex. Similarly, an 'image' means more than a static picture, particularly when one considers performance as a series of continuous images.
For me, there is no doubt that anything visual is an image, but for an image to be 'true' it needs to achieve more than to just exist.
In Artaud's lifetime, the development of photography, particularly the technological editing of images, was significant. A good example of this can be seen on the web link below, with Stalin removing Trotsky from photographs after the latter's expulsion from the party: (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/classes/csci_2101/false.html). Several people must have begun to question the authenticity of images that were presented to them, a feeling coined by Daryl Chin as "postmodern scepticism". Chin continues to explain that "pain seems to be one of the only guarantors of the genuine". Violence is, of course, the cause of pain.
Therefore, violence is an effective way of verifying the ‘truth’ of an image. All images of interest to Artaud, including his drawings and the gestures used in performances, must be violent in order to be 'true': true to its purpose in effecting the audience, as well as, more simply, true as in ‘authentic’.
Susan Sontag's use of the term, ‘a total art form’ describes Artaud's aim to change what he understood theatre to be: performed literature. The ‘total theatre’ that he desired to be performed, would take into account all the possibilities and facets of live performance. Whilst literature relies solely upon spoken language, theatre draws upon a ‘plurality of materials’. Through the use of music, light, props and the human body itself, he would aim to create an experience that would overwhelm the audience’s senses.
Whilst Sontag explains that Artaud wanted to add many artistic mediums, she maintains that there is more to “total theatre”. Artaud aimed to ‘purge the theatre of what is extraneous or easy’. His vision was more than just a circus, or variety show. It was to be a more visceral experience, challenging and emotionally affecting audiences. This required a change in the way actors performed. Artaud wanted his performers to be ‘athletes’ pushing themselves physically and emotionally, so as to delve into the depths of human emotion. Through the visual and ecstatic performances that the actors would create, theatre would become (in Artaud’s mind) a far more organic and real artform, than naturalistic drama ever could be.
By comparing verbal language to a barrier or 'vacuum' that separates a true understanding or experience of an emotion, Artaud suggests there must be a far more effective means of expression. In Oriental and Western Theatre, he even goes as far as saying that 'any true feeling cannot, in reality, be expressed' and that 'to do so is to betray it'. He further denounces language as 'lucid' and feels it 'prevents poetry appearing in thought'; that by trying to distill the emotion into a form of communication, one takes away the actual essence of it. By the use of the word 'violent' to describe his theatre, Artaud refers to an urgent and powerful form of energy rather than 'hacking at each other's bodies'. Instead of using using a constructed form of expression - language - which in many cases dilutes the actual feeling, Artaud strives for an energetic, violent burst of expression in order to express as true a representation of the emotion as possible. When describing his plans for a 'theatre of cruelty in No More Masterpieces, Artaud that he aims for it to'[put] itself whenever possible in communication with pure forces' rather than 'copying life'. I therefore feel that a true image must be a 'violent' one (or at least violence is the closest possible means to presenting a true image), in that it is expressing the pure emotion as it is rather than condensing it down into a textual or verbal language.
Do you agree that 'an image is true insofar as it is violent.'
Amiri Baraka's play 'Slaveship' employs many of Artaud's ideas, and in fact was said to be the 'zenith of Baraka's allegiance to Artaud's theatre of cruelty.' Artaud was Baraka's practioning hero and Baraka employs many of his techniques throughout all of his plays.
Baraka's play 'The Slaveship' was first published in 1969. It is a one-act play that takes place during distinct historical experiences in African-American history, aboard a slave ship from Africa to America, during a plantation-era uprising, and in the era of the civil rights movement.
The images within this play are extremely violent.
Baraka uses all the senses to create an image of the TRUTH of the horror of captivity. Detailed directorial notes take up as much space in this play as the actual dialogue does, showing Baraka's artaud-like obsession with detail within an image. One of the director notes is for 'drums of fire and blood' to be played, and, whilst reading the play, such violent creations of a whole image, with sound and light and action do mean the image becomes truthful - in fact, overpoweringly so.
Furthermore, at the end of the play, the decapitated head of the preacher character is rolled into the middle of the room just before a final blackout. Such a violent image certainly adds to the truthfulness within the subject that Baraka so wanted to display to his audience: the cruelty towards slaves, the hatred between the races at the time and the terrorizing fear of one another.
Artaud’s sole tangible legacy is The Theatre and its Double which espouses the virtues of Eastern theatre, spirituality and sensation, recommends discarding text in favour of “total theatre”, demanding an art that must be “sacred”, acting as a “cure” for audiences. Artaud’s writings and practice suffer from a lack of a “tangible, verifiable system of thought”, meaning that his principles for creating an “essential theatre” have not yet been fully realised. His vision was so grandiose it is unsurprising that there is a consensus, confirmed by essayist Susan Sontag, that “there is no way of applying Artaud”. However, Artaud himself recognised that his theories were not fully formed, calling them “rigorous and unexpected principles, grim and terrible in nature, and just when one expects to see me justify them I pass on to the next principle”. His writings were as much a demonstration of disgust for the “complacent bourgeois” theatre, typically settling for established texts and populism, as they were his vision of progression. I believe his objective for ‘total theatre’ must be seen as a drive towards an ideal of theatre that creates “complete upheaval” for an audience, rather than catering for those who go to the theatre merely for pleasure “as they go to the brothel’. He demanded a move from the reliance of theatre at the time on text towards a more cohesive theatrical experience where all dramatic elements, including the use of the actor’s body, are vital. In addition to this Artaud’s advocation of stage effects - including surround sound, invented instruments, vivid costume, puppetry and “new and revolutionary lighting equipment … to produce magical effects of great impact” – intended to be “ultimately experienced as body sensations” by spectators and inspired theatrical progress. His writing and practice communicate his feelings of frustration at an audience’s ease to accept artifice and superficiality in theatre and it is inevitable his words will be generalised, hyperbolic and lacking in exemplary practice, more an expression of what he did not want for the art-form than the style he advocated. His breaking of theatrical convention and opposition to populism had “considerable impact” to all directors desiring more than superficiality and to reach out to use more elements and art forms to combine for an effect of ‘total theatre’.
I believe ‘the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’ to refer to those things which affect a society on an emotional level, things which compose the status quo and those which break it at any particular period. For example, specific to the time we live in now, paedophilia is felt to be a cultural scourge which threatens the way we live our lives. This would not be felt in quite the same way in a society where girls were expected to be married with children at fourteen. The expression relates to the unglossed, unsophisticated beliefs and anxieties of a specific moment in time. Artaud believed that theatre must connect with this rhythm and so works created outside the time of presentation, for example the Greek classics, have no relevance to the here and now.
Sontag’s ‘total art form’ is a master art in which all media of artistic creation are incorporated. Unlike the Western habit of dividing the arts into genres (drama, dance, music, literature, fine arts), a total art form rises above these divides and creates without limitations, enabling a greater freedom of expression and communication.
As for the debate? I’m not sure.
I think it’s interesting that Billy wrote about ‘presenting a true image’. In Artaudian terms, I would imagine that a true image cannot be ‘presented’, but can only ‘be’. Certainly, if violence is added to a presentation, for example: if violence is exerted on a performer, depending on the level of violence, they will probably stop performing/presenting and begin just to be – probably being in pain. Perhaps, a true image is one in which the subject does not know it’s part of an image, where the violence exerted on the subject is the cruelty of existence. I’m not sure if I’m now suggesting voyeurism… Perhaps, the problem of truth does not lie with the violence involved but with the artificiality of an image (‘An artificial imitation or representation of the external form of any object’ – OED). I don’t know how we could break down the artificiality of an image.
Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’?
Artaud doubtlessly thought that the only way to convey truth through theatre was by using violence; however, this concept seems initially rather repellent to modern sensibilities. Violence is not shown on television until after nine o'clock, our news broadcasts are sanitised so we aren't disturbed by terrible events in far-off regions of the world, leading to the fact that we find ourselves able to avert our eyes from violence and cruelty whenever we see fit. This is not a true way of living - we see only what we want to see, and are able to turn ourselves off from what we do not like and find visually unappealing.
The sort of violence that Artaud understood is not so easy to ignore. Artaud was adamant that art should not be simply aesthetic, it should not be merely for art's sake. Artaud's work was vital, in his view necessary for existence. As such, ethics did not really hold much importance and violence was inflicted both upon his audience and his performers - of course, neither of those terms can really be used in the way that we understand them as the audience were not merely spectators and the actors were not just playing roles. Artaud said that his cruelty was 'not sadistic or bloody', and more about 'strictness, diligence, unrelenting decisiveness, irreversible and absolute determination'; in fact he denounced what we would view to be violence. His entire concept of theatre was born out of his drive that all theatre must have a 'blind zest for life', and it is certainly possible to argue that Artaud's pain and violence in his theatrical images were completely true for him and the pain he experienced.
One of the reasons that Artaud had such a magnetic personality was his pain, the truth that people saw in him because of his insanity and the agonies he went through. Doubtlessly his theatre was completely sincere and for him it would have held absolute truth, if his ideas had worked out more practically. However, truth is a very individual concept. While Artaud saw truth in pain and suffering, others see it in beauty and joy. The fact remains though that upon seeing any piece of Artaudian theatre, any audience would be hugely moved by the violence and cruelty in some way, disturbed or thrilled or repulsed. In this way, in these true feelings that the audience would be unable to escape, truth is completely evident in the violence of his work. However, this does not mean that every image (particularly non-Artaudian images) must be violent in order to be truthful. Truth does not always directly correlate to violence, they are just intrinsically linked in Artaudian theatre.
Artaud desired a new art form that would shock us out of the apathy that other forms had ensnared us in. He particularly detested the spoken word in cinema and espoused a theory that could cross mediums and style. His 'total art form' is more elemental, explicit and visceral than art forms previously seen. Sontag argues that Artaud believed the most suited medium for his new 'total art form' was the theatre. The theatres advantage over film was that it was "carnal" and "corporeal" and was not constricted to the "plurality of languages." It wasn't about combining "music, painting, sculpture, architecture and literature". Perhaps Max over simplifies things when he talks of combining all those separate elements as the explanation of the ‘total art form’. This is how theatre companies have approached Artaud’s ideas to theatre in the past and it has more often than not proved to be a failure. Artaud was searching for something more elusive and organic. Unfortunately it avoided both his writings and his own theatrical productions. Perhaps Artaud wanted a 'total art form' that echoed the elemental traits of existence but by doing so closed the "gap between art and life", which in turn destroys art, but as Sontag argues, "at the same time, universalises it." What Fiona says about Artaud’s writings and practice lacking a “tangible, verifiable system of thought” is correct and as a consequence, his essential theatre or ‘total art form’ has never been fully realised.
Question One: At the turn of the twentieth century, the overall context of that time permitted an extraordinary blossoming of the various form of arts. The rapid process of industrialization had obviously been transcribed in the vast majority of the artists' works, the first world war's traumas remaining a major source of inspiration (e.g: Otto Dix). Indeed, it seemed rather unaccepatble that technological innovations which were to facilitate the hard labour could eventually become a mean of killing people. The trust in modernity was then reconsidered by various artists. Modernity became an enemy, a fear towards an impersonal world. There is no doubt that such dramatic events radically changed their ways of seeing the world and provoked a rise of new movements which questioned the different fields of art. Although some earliest artistic movements such as surrealism or dadaism already conveyed the contemporary preoccupations by undermining modernity and the absurdity of life, it seems that Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty also embodies correctly the true concerns of his time. That is to say, a period where nothing is fixed and where everything is inclined to change. It is impossible not to think of the overall historical context which surrounded the writing of Artaud's manifesto. In 1933, Europe saw the rise of Adolf Hitler. The agitated crowds of the various nazis celebrations were broadcasted on television or in cinemas where the fervour for a political leader had never been so visual and terifying. A waterfall of images and sounds invaded people's mind and theatre undoubtly was to follow the shock of a 'crude' reality where taboos were put into question and the moral conventions slowly disintegrated. There is in Artaud's writings a sense of urgency as he expresses his fear of a 'cataclysm'. The escalation of this authoriatrian nazi regime progressively banned the access to what they considered as a 'degenerated culture' and led to the closure of the Bauhaus at the end of July 1933. In order to counteract the overall chaos which threatens art as well as the intellect of each and other person, Artaud believed that an accurate theatrical language had to be found. A language which should overwhelm its audience who participates physically as well as intellectually to the experience that is displayed all around them and where passivity remains impossible if not forbidden.
Question Two: It is very likely that Susan Sontag almost rephrases Antonin Artaud himself when talking about a "total art form". The man obviously argued a great deal on the importance of balinese theatre which sums up his own thinking of theatre as a ritual which blurs the boundaries between reality and art. The Theatre of Cruelty indeed aims to create this bridge between what has always been considered perfectly incompatible despite the naturalist inclination towards the end of the XIXth century. Therefore Artaud tried to confront Plato's conception of art which he constantly diminish thinking it threatens people's perception of reality and truth, art being no more than just a pale imitation of life which can never compete with it. Of course, Artaud aknowledge the difference between theatre and life but he nevertheless believed that the 'whole nature', meaning all the constituents of reality, could be brought metaphorically on stage, an idea that is usually found in the oriental conception of theatre (e.g: Balinese theatre, Noh Theatre). It seems therefore accurate to invoke all forms of art and techniques on stage as to recreate a palpable feeling of aliveness and thus unconscious reality on stage. Every means of art were then necesseray to call for the audience's attention and involvement into the piece. Music, dance, sounds, and lights were meant to stimulate all the senses and to bring the audience through a spiritual journey similar in some ways to the transe state in which the participants of balinese are thrown into, a performance in which the audience can no longer defines the limits between the performing space and reality itself.
Question Three: Antonin Artaud's legacy of a theatre of 'cruelty' raises questions on the presence of violence on stage. Although he explicitly claimed in his First Letter on Cruelty (September 1932) that the use of the term 'cruelty' is not necessarly correlated to blood or pain, we may argue on the fact that Antonin Artaud was eager to release a great deal of violence on stage, violence which is latent to Artaud's writings and his obsession with the body. We cannot here but think of the greek catharsis particularly appealing in antique tragedies such as Medea or Electra, in which the atrocities displayed in front of the audience aim to purify its audience and to morally tame the mass. Artaud is certainly refering to the illustrious catharsis while writing the Theatre and its Double but it is important to signify that he clearly pushes this notion even further by showing distorted images directly coming from the unconscious and belonging to the world of dreams. Therefore the kind of violence which he is aiming to create is no way grounded into reality because naturalism, as we said before, narrows the audience's intellect. Violence is also a mean to wake the theatregoers up by confronting them to their primal physical responses regardless of the words which are not powerful enough to describe the turmoil of the XXth century. Being firstly physical, it seems that the image is necessarly true. However this assertion raises a new philosphical question which is shifting from our original question but seems worth asking: is instinct socially constructed and therefore true? It certainly calls for more understanding of the whole subject matter and is pivotal to our own understanding of what is truth.
I completely agree with Billy's point about violence in terms of Artaud's theatre being more about a violent force, an actor’s complete dedication to his performance, to his art, to the point of physical and emotional pain. I do not believe that we can interpret the word ‘violent’ as we normally would, but instead to consider it in relation to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. Artaud did not mean violence in terms of sadism or aggression, something that we now immediately assume is meant by the term, but instead he was trying to express a physical and emotional commitment towards creating reality in the theatre. An image is true as long as the creator has made a violent attempt to generate realism. As Susan Sontag says, ‘For Artuad the ‘true theatre is a dangerous, intimidating experience – one that excludes placid emotions, playfulness and reassuring intimacy.’ Artuad did not attempt to placate his audiences with pleasant images and happy endings, but instead attempted throughout his life to create realism within the theatre, to use a ‘total art form’ in order to ‘improve or edify’ his spectators and not to horrify them with sadistic imagery for no reason.
What do you understand by the expression ‘ the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’?
Artaud’s epithet is used here as the converse of the ‘manner and language’ of Oedipus the King, ‘too refined for this age, it is as if he speaking beside the point.’ We have then the two adjectives that Artaud has selected to typify the essence of the culture in which he was writing. Artaud is only one of very many scholars to use psychiatric disorders to explain cultural forms or trends. Robert Hughs in The Shock of the New refers to the culture of post great war Europe as ‘schizophrenic’, as does Fredric Jameson, who uses the metaphor of schizophrenia to describe the fissures in signification that characterised the avant-gardes’ and then the postmodern;
as temporal continuities break down, the experience of the present becomes powerfully, overwhelmingly vivid and ‘material’: the world becomes schizophrenic with heightened intensity, bearing a mysterious and oppressive charge of affect, glowing with hallucinatory energy.
Hughs makes it very clear that it is the power of the machine, its speed and fragmentation, that characterise these trends and justify these metaphors. These references to a culture that is epileptic or schizophrenic refer primarily to the modes of communication that distinguish it from another; ‘the medium that’, McLuhan suggested, ‘shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.’ In describing his world as epileptic, Artaud was commenting implicitly on its communicative forms, the languages with which he was concerned as an artist and theorist. He was right to assign his metaphor to rhythm and cultural pacing; as Jameson writes, the schizophrenic ‘does not have our experience of temporal continuity either, but is condemned to live a perpetual present’. The technology becoming available in Artaud’s time allowed an increasing cultural pace which characterised his age, as asserted, again by McLuhan; ‘the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.’ Artaud’s statement should be understood as a descriptor of the communicative forms of his time, all intimately linked with the characteristics of the great technological advances taking place throughout the century. If ‘crude’, the increasingly electronic culture to which Artaud was alluding was preceded by the established print culture, which commanded a ‘respect for what has been written, formulated’. Every medium is viewed first as a crude periphery, before becoming an established and respected standard. Both cinema and printmaking were used as erotica before they were circulated as mainstream cultural forms. The appellation ‘crude’ may indicate no more than novelty- the shock of the new.
Do you agree that 'an image is true insofar as it is violent.'?
There are several approaches for considering forms of inscription as intrinsically violent. Borges once wrote that ‘man will never create in the same way as God created the world’. Derrida develops this line of thought, suggesting that every notation is by its very nature an appropriation of another’s material, a power play that cannot but do violence to the other’s intention. It is this violence, seldom acknowledged in a culture that reveres originality, that is the essence of notation. To acknowledge this violence is to state the truth of notation, not just imagistic but textual too (neither are exclusive, as Derrida ironically suggests; ‘the image will always have the final word’). A second involves the origins of language itself. Rene Girard published his theory of the birth of culture as a ‘sacrificial crisis’. He claims that the generative act that preceded the origin of civilisation was a primordial murder of a surrogate victim. In order to perpetuate the affect of this death and enrich cultural progression, the killing is re-enacted; a ritualisation of violence. This second killing, mimetic of the first is the first representation, the birth of signification. Language was born of violence. Bertrand mentioned Greek catharsis in reference to violence in Artaud, and this is relevant here; the violent expulsion or death that characterises both catharsis and sacrifice, the death or expulsion and cure as seen in the Theatre and the Plague is the precursor, according to Girard, to the generation of a new cultural structure and language. This opening of mimetic theory equates to a notion in Derridian theory; the obscure ‘original structure: the opening of history, historicity itself.’ This violent event is the initial signifier, the first significant cultural language. As Levi- Strauss demonstrates in his anthropologies, the form of these languages mould later human interactions, making violence the essential mode of language;
'language can be said to be a condition of culture because the material out of which language is built is of the same type as the material out of which the whole culture is built: logical relations, oppositions, correlations, and the like. Language, from this point of view, may appear as laying a kind of foundation for the more complex structures which correspond to the different aspects culture.'
This statement, then, could be understood to refer to the violence intrinsic to the use of language, or as reflexive of the violent origins of representation, but these theories are not mutually exclusive. Of course it’s difficult to know what is meant by ‘truth’, but understood in the light of the theories above, he could have meant that in violence Artaud saw a truth of language, that in employing violence he could penetrate to origin and nature of what notation is. But I think what John has written above; a true image cannot be ‘presented’, but can only ‘be’,’ is correct. If we compare this idea to Girard’s, we could say that in dealing with violence it is possible to penetrate through the representational layers of an image and a sense its violent origin, ‘which cannot be ‘presented’ (since it preceded representation itself, Derrida’s ‘opening of history’) and ‘can only be”; a truth.
In her essay Approaching Artaud, Susan Sontag describes an additive model of ‘a total art [that] had to be a multi-voiced performance, not a singular lyrical object.’ It’s an idea that was also familiar to Craig and Brecht, but it also has strong voices today, notably Peter Greenaway’s, blending film with live performance in his role as a ‘VJ’; ‘video jockey’. It is a combinative model that, inclusive of every art form, forces none of these elements into an illustrative role. It is this that Artaud rails against in his theatre essays; ‘it is essential to put an end to the subjugation of the theatre to the text, and to recover the notion of a kind of unique language half-way between gesture and thought.’ Sontag alludes to another conception of total art, not simply additive but ancient and transgressive; ‘Once the leading criterion for an art becomes its merger with life (that is, everything, including other arts) the existence of separate art forms ceases to be defensible.’ This implies that arguments surrounding segregations within the arts are immaterial to a different transgressive totality of ‘gesture and thought’- that this totality preceded the segregation of the arts rather than simply resulting from their marriage, as in the additive model. Derrida’s term ‘festival of cruelty’ could be used to describe this other totality, in which the subject becomes the object and social laws break down. The idea of the festival recalls Nietzsche’s Dionysian;
‘Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but Nature which has become estranged, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.’
This passage clearly illustrates art merging with life after which ‘the existence of separate art forms ceases to be defensible.’ In the light of the theory of the Dionysiac cults as Nietzsche saw them, this model becomes almost transcendental: the festival, rather than the modern, formal totality, a conception that began perhaps with Wagner, is a ‘Primordial Unity’, the obscure sacred rituals, alluded to by Nietzsche, which gave birth, through its conjunction to the Apollonian, to Western theatre itself, through which ‘nature seems to reveal a sentimental trait; it is as if she were heaving a sigh at her dismemberment into individuals.’ The final passage of Force and Signification helps qualify the link between the notion of the Dionysiac festival and Artaud’s wish to break away from literary tradition into a total form; ‘Flaubert was aware, and he was right, that writing cannot be thoroughly Dionysion. “One can only think and write sitting down,” he said.’ I’m not sure whether the two notions are reconcilable. Derrida suggested no; ‘We would have to choose then, between writing and dance. Nietzsche recommends a dance of the pen in vain’.
In the chapter No more Masterpieces Artaud outlines some of his key theories including his desire for an end of conventional “masterpieces” because he claims they lack contact with 'The crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’. He refers to the language and costume of the classic play Oedipus rex as an example. Artaud is really, shedding light on is the need for theatre to be in touch with modern life, the use of colloquialisms and the general social standing of society. I would agree with Pashers that he is describing the composition of the status quo: Theatre must resonate with the Real world not be a pure artistic form which transcends it.
Susan Sontag's "total art form" refers to Artaud's aim for theatre to completely engulf the spectator in sound and image, for the theatre to become a fully immersive environment, and one which utilizes all of the tools and different mediums that theatre provides. However to add to Max Bex’s comment, Sontag takes this a step further and outlines Artaud's desire for theatre to change and emotionally affect an audience but not in the Stanislavkian sense, he did not wish the audience to empathize as such; he makes it clear that he wants to break away from the literary model he sees no point in performing "life" if you are merely illustrating a piece of literature. He wanted to break the barrier between spectator and spectacle; engulf them in a performance which is challenging and rich, utilizing different mediums, pushing the actors to the limit and steering clear of this conventional literary model. In order to achieve this, Sontag describes a need for a new kind of actor, similar to Grotowski's work with biomechanics, there seems to be, in both cases a need for a more athletic actor who is highly disciplined and able to push themselves to the limit emotionally and physically. Artaud’s interest in the Balinese ritual theatre has obviously come into play here, Balinese theatre is an example of this "total art form", utilizing different mediums and fully immersing the actors and audience in the performance. Western theatre by comparison is a much less interactive and much less challenging for the mind and body, completely unlike the strenuous performance of the Balinese theatre. I would conclude that this total Art form as an aspect of his theatre of cruelty was a means by which to enrich theatre in the West and whip the audience up into a state of frenzy.
15 comments:
Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’ (88)?
To consider this question, one must distinguish between Artaud's understanding of the statement and ours today. For example, where-as 'violence' brings to mind negative connotations of cruelty and pain, the meaning of such words to Artaud was far more complex. Similarly, an 'image' means more than a static picture, particularly when one considers performance as a series of continuous images.
For me, there is no doubt that anything visual is an image, but for an image to be 'true' it needs to achieve more than to just exist.
In Artaud's lifetime, the development of photography, particularly the technological editing of images, was significant. A good example of this can be seen on the web link below, with Stalin removing Trotsky from photographs after the latter's expulsion from the party: (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/classes/csci_2101/false.html). Several people must have begun to question the authenticity of images that were presented to them, a feeling coined by Daryl Chin as "postmodern scepticism". Chin continues to explain that "pain seems to be one of the only guarantors of the genuine". Violence is, of course, the cause of pain.
Therefore, violence is an effective way of verifying the ‘truth’ of an image. All images of interest to Artaud, including his drawings and the gestures used in performances, must be violent in order to be 'true': true to its purpose in effecting the audience, as well as, more simply, true as in ‘authentic’.
Susan Sontag's use of the term, ‘a total art form’ describes Artaud's aim to change what he understood theatre to be: performed literature. The ‘total theatre’ that he desired to be performed, would take into account all the possibilities and facets of live performance. Whilst literature relies solely upon spoken language, theatre draws upon a ‘plurality of materials’. Through the use of music, light, props and the human body itself, he would aim to create an experience that would overwhelm the audience’s senses.
Whilst Sontag explains that Artaud wanted to add many artistic mediums, she maintains that there is more to “total theatre”. Artaud aimed to ‘purge the theatre of what is extraneous or easy’. His vision was more than just a circus, or variety show. It was to be a more visceral experience, challenging and emotionally affecting audiences. This required a change in the way actors performed. Artaud wanted his performers to be ‘athletes’ pushing themselves physically and emotionally, so as to delve into the depths of human emotion. Through the visual and ecstatic performances that the actors would create, theatre would become (in Artaud’s mind) a far more organic and real artform, than naturalistic drama ever could be.
By comparing verbal language to a barrier or 'vacuum' that separates a true understanding or experience of an emotion, Artaud suggests there must be a far more effective means of expression. In Oriental and Western Theatre, he even goes as far as saying that 'any true feeling cannot, in reality, be expressed' and that 'to do so is to betray it'. He further denounces language as 'lucid' and feels it 'prevents poetry appearing in thought'; that by trying to distill the emotion into a form of communication, one takes away the actual essence of it.
By the use of the word 'violent' to describe his theatre, Artaud refers to an urgent and powerful form of energy rather than 'hacking at each other's bodies'. Instead of using using a constructed form of expression - language - which in many cases dilutes the actual feeling, Artaud strives for an energetic, violent burst of expression in order to express as true a representation of the emotion as possible. When describing his plans for a 'theatre of cruelty in No More Masterpieces, Artaud that he aims for it to'[put] itself whenever possible in communication with pure forces' rather than 'copying life'.
I therefore feel that a true image must be a 'violent' one (or at least violence is the closest possible means to presenting a true image), in that it is expressing the pure emotion as it is rather than condensing it down into a textual or verbal language.
Do you agree that 'an image is true insofar as it is violent.'
Amiri Baraka's play 'Slaveship' employs many of Artaud's ideas, and in fact was said to be the 'zenith of Baraka's allegiance to Artaud's theatre of cruelty.' Artaud was Baraka's practioning hero and Baraka employs many of his techniques throughout all of his plays.
Baraka's play 'The Slaveship' was first published in 1969. It is a one-act play that takes place during distinct historical experiences in African-American history, aboard a slave ship from Africa to America, during a plantation-era uprising, and in the era of the civil rights movement.
The images within this play are extremely violent.
Baraka uses all the senses to create an image of the TRUTH of the horror of captivity. Detailed directorial notes take up as much space in this play as the actual dialogue does, showing Baraka's artaud-like obsession with detail within an image. One of the director notes is for 'drums of fire and blood' to be played, and, whilst reading the play, such violent creations of a whole image, with sound and light and action do mean the image becomes truthful - in fact, overpoweringly so.
Furthermore, at the end of the play, the decapitated head of the preacher character is rolled into the middle of the room just before a final blackout. Such a violent image certainly adds to the truthfulness within the subject that Baraka so wanted to display to his audience: the cruelty towards slaves, the hatred between the races at the time and the terrorizing fear of one another.
Artaud’s sole tangible legacy is The Theatre and its Double which espouses the virtues of Eastern theatre, spirituality and sensation, recommends discarding text in favour of “total theatre”, demanding an art that must be “sacred”, acting as a “cure” for audiences. Artaud’s writings and practice suffer from a lack of a “tangible, verifiable system of thought”, meaning that his principles for creating an “essential theatre” have not yet been fully realised. His vision was so grandiose it is unsurprising that there is a consensus, confirmed by essayist Susan Sontag, that “there is no way of applying Artaud”. However, Artaud himself recognised that his theories were not fully formed, calling them “rigorous and unexpected principles, grim and terrible in nature, and just when one expects to see me justify them I pass on to the next principle”. His writings were as much a demonstration of disgust for the “complacent bourgeois” theatre, typically settling for established texts and populism, as they were his vision of progression. I believe his objective for ‘total theatre’ must be seen as a drive towards an ideal of theatre that creates “complete upheaval” for an audience, rather than catering for those who go to the theatre merely for pleasure “as they go to the brothel’. He demanded a move from the reliance of theatre at the time on text towards a more cohesive theatrical experience where all dramatic elements, including the use of the actor’s body, are vital. In addition to this Artaud’s advocation of stage effects - including surround sound, invented instruments, vivid costume, puppetry and “new and revolutionary lighting equipment … to produce magical effects of great impact” – intended to be “ultimately experienced as body sensations” by spectators and inspired theatrical progress. His writing and practice communicate his feelings of frustration at an audience’s ease to accept artifice and superficiality in theatre and it is inevitable his words will be generalised, hyperbolic and lacking in exemplary practice, more an expression of what he did not want for the art-form than the style he advocated. His breaking of theatrical convention and opposition to populism had “considerable impact” to all directors desiring more than superficiality and to reach out to use more elements and art forms to combine for an effect of ‘total theatre’.
I believe ‘the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’ to refer to those things which affect a society on an emotional level, things which compose the status quo and those which break it at any particular period. For example, specific to the time we live in now, paedophilia is felt to be a cultural scourge which threatens the way we live our lives. This would not be felt in quite the same way in a society where girls were expected to be married with children at fourteen. The expression relates to the unglossed, unsophisticated beliefs and anxieties of a specific moment in time. Artaud believed that theatre must connect with this rhythm and so works created outside the time of presentation, for example the Greek classics, have no relevance to the here and now.
Sontag’s ‘total art form’ is a master art in which all media of artistic creation are incorporated. Unlike the Western habit of dividing the arts into genres (drama, dance, music, literature, fine arts), a total art form rises above these divides and creates without limitations, enabling a greater freedom of expression and communication.
As for the debate? I’m not sure.
I think it’s interesting that Billy wrote about ‘presenting a true image’. In Artaudian terms, I would imagine that a true image cannot be ‘presented’, but can only ‘be’. Certainly, if violence is added to a presentation, for example: if violence is exerted on a performer, depending on the level of violence, they will probably stop performing/presenting and begin just to be – probably being in pain. Perhaps, a true image is one in which the subject does not know it’s part of an image, where the violence exerted on the subject is the cruelty of existence. I’m not sure if I’m now suggesting voyeurism… Perhaps, the problem of truth does not lie with the violence involved but with the artificiality of an image (‘An artificial imitation or representation of the external form of any object’ – OED). I don’t know how we could break down the artificiality of an image.
Debate: Do you agree that ‘an image is true insofar as it is violent.’?
Artaud doubtlessly thought that the only way to convey truth through theatre was by using violence; however, this concept seems initially rather repellent to modern sensibilities. Violence is not shown on television until after nine o'clock, our news broadcasts are sanitised so we aren't disturbed by terrible events in far-off regions of the world, leading to the fact that we find ourselves able to avert our eyes from violence and cruelty whenever we see fit. This is not a true way of living - we see only what we want to see, and are able to turn ourselves off from what we do not like and find visually unappealing.
The sort of violence that Artaud understood is not so easy to ignore. Artaud was adamant that art should not be simply aesthetic, it should not be merely for art's sake. Artaud's work was vital, in his view necessary for existence. As such, ethics did not really hold much importance and violence was inflicted both upon his audience and his performers - of course, neither of those terms can really be used in the way that we understand them as the audience were not merely spectators and the actors were not just playing roles. Artaud said that his cruelty was 'not sadistic or bloody', and more about 'strictness, diligence, unrelenting decisiveness, irreversible and absolute determination'; in fact he denounced what we would view to be violence. His entire concept of theatre was born out of his drive that all theatre must have a 'blind zest for life', and it is certainly possible to argue that Artaud's pain and violence in his theatrical images were completely true for him and the pain he experienced.
One of the reasons that Artaud had such a magnetic personality was his pain, the truth that people saw in him because of his insanity and the agonies he went through. Doubtlessly his theatre was completely sincere and for him it would have held absolute truth, if his ideas had worked out more practically. However, truth is a very individual concept. While Artaud saw truth in pain and suffering, others see it in beauty and joy. The fact remains though that upon seeing any piece of Artaudian theatre, any audience would be hugely moved by the violence and cruelty in some way, disturbed or thrilled or repulsed. In this way, in these true feelings that the audience would be unable to escape, truth is completely evident in the violence of his work. However, this does not mean that every image (particularly non-Artaudian images) must be violent in order to be truthful. Truth does not always directly correlate to violence, they are just intrinsically linked in Artaudian theatre.
What does Sontag mean by a ‘total art form’?
Artaud desired a new art form that would shock us out of the apathy that other forms had ensnared us in. He particularly detested the spoken word in cinema and espoused a theory that could cross mediums and style. His 'total art form' is more elemental, explicit and visceral than art forms previously seen. Sontag argues that Artaud believed the most suited medium for his new 'total art form' was the theatre. The theatres advantage over film was that it was "carnal" and "corporeal" and was not constricted to the "plurality of languages." It wasn't about combining "music, painting, sculpture, architecture and literature". Perhaps Max over simplifies things when he talks of combining all those separate elements as the explanation of the ‘total art form’. This is how theatre companies have approached Artaud’s ideas to theatre in the past and it has more often than not proved to be a failure. Artaud was searching for something more elusive and organic. Unfortunately it avoided both his writings and his own theatrical productions. Perhaps Artaud wanted a 'total art form' that echoed the elemental traits of existence but by doing so closed the "gap between art and life", which in turn destroys art, but as Sontag argues, "at the same time, universalises it." What Fiona says about Artaud’s writings and practice lacking a “tangible, verifiable system of thought” is correct and as a consequence, his essential theatre or ‘total art form’ has never been fully realised.
Question One:
At the turn of the twentieth century, the overall context of that time permitted an extraordinary blossoming of the various form of arts. The rapid process of industrialization had obviously been transcribed in the vast majority of the artists' works, the first world war's traumas remaining a major source of inspiration (e.g: Otto Dix). Indeed, it seemed rather unaccepatble that technological innovations which were to facilitate the hard labour could eventually become a mean of killing people. The trust in modernity was then reconsidered by various artists. Modernity became an enemy, a fear towards an impersonal world. There is no doubt that such dramatic events radically changed their ways of seeing the world and provoked a rise of new movements which questioned the different fields of art. Although some earliest artistic movements such as surrealism or dadaism already conveyed the contemporary preoccupations by undermining modernity and the absurdity of life, it seems that Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty also embodies correctly the true concerns of his time. That is to say, a period where nothing is fixed and where everything is inclined to change. It is impossible not to think of the overall historical context which surrounded the writing of Artaud's manifesto. In 1933, Europe saw the rise of Adolf Hitler. The agitated crowds of the various nazis celebrations were broadcasted on television or in cinemas where the fervour for a political leader had never been so visual and terifying. A waterfall of images and sounds invaded people's mind and theatre undoubtly was to follow the shock of a 'crude' reality where taboos were put into question and the moral conventions slowly disintegrated. There is in Artaud's writings a sense of urgency as he expresses his fear of a 'cataclysm'. The escalation of this authoriatrian nazi regime progressively banned the access to what they considered as a 'degenerated culture' and led to the closure of the Bauhaus at the end of July 1933. In order to counteract the overall chaos which threatens art as well as the intellect of each and other person, Artaud believed that an accurate theatrical language had to be found. A language which should overwhelm its audience who participates physically as well as intellectually to the experience that is displayed all around them and where passivity remains impossible if not forbidden.
Question Two:
It is very likely that Susan Sontag almost rephrases Antonin Artaud himself when talking about a "total art form". The man obviously argued a great deal on the importance of balinese theatre which sums up his own thinking of theatre as a ritual which blurs the boundaries between reality and art. The Theatre of Cruelty indeed aims to create this bridge between what has always been considered perfectly incompatible despite the naturalist inclination towards the end of the XIXth century. Therefore Artaud tried to confront Plato's conception of art which he constantly diminish thinking it threatens people's perception of reality and truth, art being no more than just a pale imitation of life which can never compete with it. Of course, Artaud aknowledge the difference between theatre and life but he nevertheless believed that the 'whole nature', meaning all the constituents of reality, could be brought metaphorically on stage, an idea that is usually found in the oriental conception of theatre (e.g: Balinese theatre, Noh Theatre). It seems therefore accurate to invoke all forms of art and techniques on stage as to recreate a palpable feeling of aliveness and thus unconscious reality on stage. Every means of art were then necesseray to call for the audience's attention and involvement into the piece. Music, dance, sounds, and lights were meant to stimulate all the senses and to bring the audience through a spiritual journey similar in some ways to the transe state in which the participants of balinese are thrown into, a performance in which the audience can no longer defines the limits between the performing space and reality itself.
Question Three:
Antonin Artaud's legacy of a theatre of 'cruelty' raises questions on the presence of violence on stage. Although he explicitly claimed in his First Letter on Cruelty (September 1932) that the use of the term 'cruelty' is not necessarly correlated to blood or pain, we may argue on the fact that Antonin Artaud was eager to release a great deal of violence on stage, violence which is latent to Artaud's writings and his obsession with the body. We cannot here but think of the greek catharsis particularly appealing in antique tragedies such as Medea or Electra, in which the atrocities displayed in front of the audience aim to purify its audience and to morally tame the mass. Artaud is certainly refering to the illustrious catharsis while writing the Theatre and its Double but it is important to signify that he clearly pushes this notion even further by showing distorted images directly coming from the unconscious and belonging to the world of dreams. Therefore the kind of violence which he is aiming to create is no way grounded into reality because naturalism, as we said before, narrows the audience's intellect. Violence is also a mean to wake the theatregoers up by confronting them to their primal physical responses regardless of the words which are not powerful enough to describe the turmoil of the XXth century. Being firstly physical, it seems that the image is necessarly true. However this assertion raises a new philosphical question which is shifting from our original question but seems worth asking: is instinct socially constructed and therefore true? It certainly calls for more understanding of the whole subject matter and is pivotal to our own understanding of what is truth.
I completely agree with Billy's point about violence in terms of Artaud's theatre being more about a violent force, an actor’s complete dedication to his performance, to his art, to the point of physical and emotional pain. I do not believe that we can interpret the word ‘violent’ as we normally would, but instead to consider it in relation to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. Artaud did not mean violence in terms of sadism or aggression, something that we now immediately assume is meant by the term, but instead he was trying to express a physical and emotional commitment towards creating reality in the theatre. An image is true as long as the creator has made a violent attempt to generate realism. As Susan Sontag says, ‘For Artuad the ‘true theatre is a dangerous, intimidating experience – one that excludes placid emotions, playfulness and reassuring intimacy.’ Artuad did not attempt to placate his audiences with pleasant images and happy endings, but instead attempted throughout his life to create realism within the theatre, to use a ‘total art form’ in order to ‘improve or edify’ his spectators and not to horrify them with sadistic imagery for no reason.
What do you understand by the expression ‘ the crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’?
Artaud’s epithet is used here as the converse of the ‘manner and language’ of Oedipus the King, ‘too refined for this age, it is as if he speaking beside the point.’ We have then the two adjectives that Artaud has selected to typify the essence of the culture in which he was writing.
Artaud is only one of very many scholars to use psychiatric disorders to explain cultural forms or trends. Robert Hughs in The Shock of the New refers to the culture of post great war Europe as ‘schizophrenic’, as does Fredric Jameson, who uses the metaphor of schizophrenia to describe the fissures in signification that characterised the avant-gardes’ and then the postmodern;
as temporal continuities break down, the experience of the present becomes powerfully, overwhelmingly vivid and ‘material’: the world becomes schizophrenic with heightened intensity, bearing a mysterious and oppressive charge of affect, glowing with hallucinatory energy.
Hughs makes it very clear that it is the power of the machine, its speed and fragmentation, that characterise these trends and justify these metaphors. These references to a culture that is epileptic or schizophrenic refer primarily to the modes of communication that distinguish it from another; ‘the medium that’, McLuhan suggested, ‘shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.’ In describing his world as epileptic, Artaud was commenting implicitly on its communicative forms, the languages with which he was concerned as an artist and theorist. He was right to assign his metaphor to rhythm and cultural pacing; as Jameson writes, the schizophrenic ‘does not have our experience of temporal continuity either, but is condemned to live a perpetual present’. The technology becoming available in Artaud’s time allowed an increasing cultural pace which characterised his age, as asserted, again by McLuhan; ‘the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.’ Artaud’s statement should be understood as a descriptor of the communicative forms of his time, all intimately linked with the characteristics of the great technological advances taking place throughout the century.
If ‘crude’, the increasingly electronic culture to which Artaud was alluding was preceded by the established print culture, which commanded a ‘respect for what has been written, formulated’. Every medium is viewed first as a crude periphery, before becoming an established and respected standard. Both cinema and printmaking were used as erotica before they were circulated as mainstream cultural forms. The appellation ‘crude’ may indicate no more than novelty- the shock of the new.
Do you agree that 'an image is true insofar as it is violent.'?
There are several approaches for considering forms of inscription as intrinsically violent. Borges once wrote that ‘man will never create in the same way as God created the world’. Derrida develops this line of thought, suggesting that every notation is by its very nature an appropriation of another’s material, a power play that cannot but do violence to the other’s intention. It is this violence, seldom acknowledged in a culture that reveres originality, that is the essence of notation. To acknowledge this violence is to state the truth of notation, not just imagistic but textual too (neither are exclusive, as Derrida ironically suggests; ‘the image will always have the final word’).
A second involves the origins of language itself. Rene Girard published his theory of the birth of culture as a ‘sacrificial crisis’. He claims that the generative act that preceded the origin of civilisation was a primordial murder of a surrogate victim. In order to perpetuate the affect of this death and enrich cultural progression, the killing is re-enacted; a ritualisation of violence. This second killing, mimetic of the first is the first representation, the birth of signification. Language was born of violence. Bertrand mentioned Greek catharsis in reference to violence in Artaud, and this is relevant here; the violent expulsion or death that characterises both catharsis and sacrifice, the death or expulsion and cure as seen in the Theatre and the Plague is the precursor, according to Girard, to the generation of a new cultural structure and language.
This opening of mimetic theory equates to a notion in Derridian theory; the obscure ‘original structure: the opening of history, historicity itself.’ This violent event is the initial signifier, the first significant cultural language. As Levi- Strauss demonstrates in his anthropologies, the form of these languages mould later human interactions, making violence the essential mode of language;
'language can be said to be a condition of culture because the material out of which language is built is of the same type as the material out of which the whole culture is built: logical relations, oppositions, correlations, and the like. Language, from this point of view, may appear as laying a kind of foundation for the more complex structures which correspond to the different aspects culture.'
This statement, then, could be understood to refer to the violence intrinsic to the use of language, or as reflexive of the violent origins of representation, but these theories are not mutually exclusive. Of course it’s difficult to know what is meant by ‘truth’, but understood in the light of the theories above, he could have meant that in violence Artaud saw a truth of language, that in employing violence he could penetrate to origin and nature of what notation is. But I think what John has written above; a true image cannot be ‘presented’, but can only ‘be’,’ is correct. If we compare this idea to Girard’s, we could say that in dealing with violence it is possible to penetrate through the representational layers of an image and a sense its violent origin, ‘which cannot be ‘presented’ (since it preceded representation itself, Derrida’s ‘opening of history’) and ‘can only be”; a truth.
What does Sontag mean by a ‘total art form’?
In her essay Approaching Artaud, Susan Sontag describes an additive model of ‘a total art [that] had to be a multi-voiced performance, not a singular lyrical object.’ It’s an idea that was also familiar to Craig and Brecht, but it also has strong voices today, notably Peter Greenaway’s, blending film with live performance in his role as a ‘VJ’; ‘video jockey’. It is a combinative model that, inclusive of every art form, forces none of these elements into an illustrative role. It is this that Artaud rails against in his theatre essays; ‘it is essential to put an end to the subjugation of the theatre to the text, and to recover the notion of a kind of unique language half-way between gesture and thought.’
Sontag alludes to another conception of total art, not simply additive but ancient and transgressive; ‘Once the leading criterion for an art becomes its merger with life (that is, everything, including other arts) the existence of separate art forms ceases to be defensible.’ This implies that arguments surrounding segregations within the arts are immaterial to a different transgressive totality of ‘gesture and thought’- that this totality preceded the segregation of the arts rather than simply resulting from their marriage, as in the additive model. Derrida’s term ‘festival of cruelty’ could be used to describe this other totality, in which the subject becomes the object and social laws break down. The idea of the festival recalls Nietzsche’s Dionysian;
‘Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between man and man reaffirmed, but Nature which has become estranged, hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.’
This passage clearly illustrates art merging with life after which ‘the existence of separate art forms ceases to be defensible.’ In the light of the theory of the Dionysiac cults as Nietzsche saw them, this model becomes almost transcendental: the festival, rather than the modern, formal totality, a conception that began perhaps with Wagner, is a ‘Primordial Unity’, the obscure sacred rituals, alluded to by Nietzsche, which gave birth, through its conjunction to the Apollonian, to Western theatre itself, through which ‘nature seems to reveal a sentimental trait; it is as if she were heaving a sigh at her dismemberment into individuals.’
The final passage of Force and Signification helps qualify the link between the notion of the Dionysiac festival and Artaud’s wish to break away from literary tradition into a total form; ‘Flaubert was aware, and he was right, that writing cannot be thoroughly Dionysion. “One can only think and write sitting down,” he said.’ I’m not sure whether the two notions are reconcilable. Derrida suggested no; ‘We would have to choose then, between writing and dance. Nietzsche recommends a dance of the pen in vain’.
In the chapter No more Masterpieces Artaud outlines some of his key theories including his desire for an end of conventional “masterpieces” because he claims they lack contact with 'The crude and epileptic rhythm of the time’. He refers to the language and costume of the classic play Oedipus rex as an example. Artaud is really, shedding light on is the need for theatre to be in touch with modern life, the use of colloquialisms and the general social standing of society. I would agree with Pashers that he is describing the composition of the status quo: Theatre must resonate with the Real world not be a pure artistic form which transcends it.
Susan Sontag's "total art form" refers to Artaud's aim for theatre to completely engulf the spectator in sound and image, for the theatre to become a fully immersive environment, and one which utilizes all of the tools and different mediums that theatre provides. However to add to Max Bex’s comment, Sontag takes this a step further and outlines Artaud's desire for theatre to change and emotionally affect an audience but not in the Stanislavkian sense, he did not wish the audience to empathize as such; he makes it clear that he wants to break away from the literary model he sees no point in performing "life" if you are merely illustrating a piece of literature. He wanted to break the barrier between spectator and spectacle; engulf them in a performance which is challenging and rich, utilizing different mediums, pushing the actors to the limit and steering clear of this conventional literary model. In order to achieve this, Sontag describes a need for a new kind of actor, similar to Grotowski's work with biomechanics, there seems to be, in both cases a need for a more athletic actor who is highly disciplined and able to push themselves to the limit emotionally and physically. Artaud’s interest in the Balinese ritual theatre has obviously come into play here, Balinese theatre is an example of this "total art form", utilizing different mediums and fully immersing the actors and audience in the performance. Western theatre by comparison is a much less interactive and much less challenging for the mind and body, completely unlike the strenuous performance of the Balinese theatre. I would conclude that this total Art form as an aspect of his theatre of cruelty was a means by which to enrich theatre in the West and whip the audience up into a state of frenzy.
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