Essay Questions.

School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies

Aspects of Theatre & Performance
Autumn Term Module 2008

THEATRE AND THEORY AFTER ARTAUD

Essay Questions. Essays (c. 3000 words) are to be submitted to the Departmental office by 4pm on Monday 12th January 2009 (Week 2, Spring Term)

Choose one of the following topics:


Q1. Andre Breton once said that ‘the simplest surrealist act consists in descending to the street with revolver in hand and shooting at random, as fast as one can, into the crowd.’ (The Second Manifesto of Surrealism) What does he mean and how is the surrealist aesthetic evident in Artaud’s work (artworks, radio, film, theatre writings etc)?

Q2. Michel Foucault says that ‘Artaud’s… madness is precisely the absence of the work of art, the reiterated presence of that absence…’ (Madness and Civilization p287) What does this statement suggest about Artaud’s artistic output?

Q3. ‘Smash language to touch life!’ (Artaud, ‘The Theatre and its Double’) What is the function of language in the theatre of cruelty? You may wish to consider how Artaud’s work in other media (cinema, drawing, radio, poetry) influenced his writing about the use of language in theatre.

Q4. ‘Conceived as an art form at the juncture of other signifying practices as varied as dance, music, painting, architecture and sculpture, performance seems paradoxically to correspond to the new theatre invoked by Artaud.’ (Josette Feral in Elizabeth Wright Postmodern Brecht pll5) In what ways is Artaud’s theatre of cruelty evident in developments in contemporary performance? Discuss with reference to at least 2 of the artists on the course.

Q5. In Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu Artaud calls for a reworking of the human body, in the form of a ‘body without organs’ which will liberate man and ‘teach him to dance inside out...and that inside out will be his true side out.’ (PF p79) Discuss this image in relation to the body in performance art. In what sense does performance art stage a ‘body without organs’?

Q6. Devise your own topic in association with your lecturer. NB. this must be completed and a wording agreed upon by end of week 10 in Autumn term.