THEATRE AND THEORY AFTER ARTAUD 2008

School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies

Aspects of Theatre & Performance
Autumn Term Module 2007

Convenor: Dr. Edward Scheer (e.scheer@warwick.ac.uk)

Timetable: Thur 2-4 G56ß

Introduction
This module provides students with an account of the effects of Antonin Artaud’s writings on contemporary performance practice and its theorisation. Artaud’s writing on the theatre constitutes only a fraction of his total output but its influence has been immense. This module analyses Artaud’s life and work and examines his legacy across the disciplines which comprise contemporary performance: theatre, cinema, radio/sound arts and other cultural media. We will study examples of his own film and stage performances, his various approaches to the text and the image, and some of the key theoretical and performance texts which have responded to his provocations including the work of figures such as Grotowski, and Hijikata and post-structuralist writers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze. Artaud’s challenge to theatre constitutes one of the essential paradoxes of modernism: how to break out of representation and embrace the Real (the world, life etc) while remaining within the realm of the aesthetic? This question requires us to interrogate theatre at its limits.

Course Outline

Week 1 Introduction to Artaud’s life and cultural context with regard to Surrealist approaches to representation.
Suggested Reading:
- Georges Bataille, from ‘Writings on Surrealism’ (Chapter 3 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- André Breton & André Parinaud, from Conversations: the Autobiography of Surrealism (Chapters 1 and 2 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)

Week 2 Artaud’s cinema roles as the basis of a paradigm for acting. Screening of scenes from ‘Napoleon’ (dir. Abel Gance 1926) ‘La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc’ (dir. Carl Dreyer 1927) ‘My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud’ (dir Gerard Mordillat 1996).
Required Reading:
-Francis Vanoye ‘Cinemas of Cruelty?’ (Chapter 20 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Daryl Chin, ‘The Antonin Artaud Film Project’, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 56 (Volume 19, Number 2), May 1997, pp. 23-28

Week 3 The theatre essays, the 1930s and his development of an aesthetics of rigour and necessity. Artaud on stage. Performing cruelty.
Required Reading:
-Antonin Artaud, ‘The Theatre of Cruelty (First manifesto)’ and ‘No more masterpieces’ from The Theatre and Its Double
- Susan Sontag, from ‘Approaching Artaud’ (Chapter 11 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Gautam Dasgupta, ‘Remembering Artaud’ PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 56 (Volume 19, Number 2), May 1997, pp. 1-5

Week 4 Madness and cruelty. Artaud’s experiences of madness. Artaud on Van Gogh, Artaud as van Gogh. Foucaults’s theories of madness as the absence of the work of art. The theatre as work of madness.
Required Reading:
- E. Scheer, ‘Foucault/Artaud: the madness of the oeuvre’
- Sylvère Lotringer, Interview with Latremolière (Chapter 4 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Antonin Artaud, ‘Van Gogh the Suicide of Society’

Week 5 Performing the impossible body. The radio works. Reading ‘To have done with the Judgement of god.’ What is the body without organs? Artaud on the voice. Deleuze on Artaud.
Required Reading:
- Antonin Artaud, To have done with the judgement of god
- Allen S. Weiss, ‘K’ (Chapter 17 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Rex Butler, ‘Non-genital thought’, 100 Years of Cruelty, pp. 23 - 57

Week 6 Reading week

Week 7 Performance, violence and convulsive aesthetics.
Screening: Genesi, from the Museum of Sleep (2000, 60’) by Cristiano Carloni and Stefano Franceschetti from the performance by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio

(Alternative: ‘My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud’ (dir Gerard Mordillat 1996).
or Performance film by Nic Roeg and Donald Cammell, Warner Brothers 1970. Cast: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg
Reading:
Colin MacCabe, from Performance BFI Film Classics Series London : British Film Institute, 1998.


Week 8 Artaud and the Visual arts. Interpreting Artaud’s drawings in terms of his theories of the image. Outsider art and the performance of the image. Derrida’s Artaud.
Required Reading:
- Jacques Derrida, from ‘To unsense the subjectile’ (Chapter 15 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- E. Scheer ‘Sketches of the jet’ 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud ed. Edward Scheer. Sydney: Power Publications and Artspace (2000)

Week 9 Artaud’s legacy Part 1. The limits of theatre, Doing Artaud: the failure of the 1964 RSC season of cruelty. Grotowski on Artaud.
Required Reading:
- J. Derrida, from ‘The theatre of cruelty and the closure of representation.’ (Chapter 6 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- J. Grotowski, ‘He wasn’t entirely himself’ (Chapter 8 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Clive Barker, ‘Tell Me When It Hurts: The ‘Theatre Of Cruelty’ Season 30 Years On’ NTQ 46. (May 1996)

Week 10 Artaud’s legacy Part 2. Contemporary physical theatre, butoh as dance of cruelty. Is authenticity possible in theatre? Introduction to performance art. Performance art history from Joseph Beuys and Shamanism to Viennese Actionism.
- Helga Finter, from ‘Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre. The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty’ (Chapter 7 Antonin Artaud. A Critical Reader)
- Kurihara, Nanako ‘Hijikata Tatsumi: The Words of Butoh’ TDR: The Drama Review - Volume 44, Number 1 (T 165), Spring 2000, pp. 10-28
- Lynn MacRitchie, ‘Marina Abramovic: Exchanging Energies’ Performance Research #1.2 Routledge,1996: 27-34.
- Tanya Augsburg, ‘Orlan’s Performative Transformations of Subjectivity’ in P. Phelan and J. lane eds. The Ends of Performance, New York and London: NYU Press, 1998: 285-326
- Orlan, ‘Intervention’ in P. Phelan and J. lane eds. The Ends of Performance, New York and London: NYU Press, 1998: 315-327.
- ‘Breaking Through Language’ an interview with Mike Parr, Edward Scheer and Nick Tsoutas 100 Years of Cruelty: Essays on Artaud ed. Edward Scheer. Sydney: Power Publications and Artspace (2000)

ASSESSMENT: There are three components of assessment:

(1) Exam (50%).

(2) Essay (40%) An essay of approximately 3000 words. Topics to be announced. Due Monday 14th January 2008 (Week 2, Spring Term)

(3) Class/blog participation (10%). This grade assesses contribution to the subject in terms of levels of preparedness and approach to activities and discussions. It includes the quality and cogency of blog postings.