The Theater and Its Double by Antonin Artaud

First published:Le Theatre et son double, 1938 (English translation, 1958)

Type of work: Theater criticism

Form and Content

After he had completed his play Les Cenci (1935; The Cenci, 1969), Antonin Artaud conceived of the idea of collecting his writings on theater into a book that would outline his vision for a new kind of theater. Despite his failure to realize his vision in his production of The Cenci, Artaud continued to prepare new articles for his book and to crystallize his thinking on theater as he journeyed to Mexico to investigate the ritual performances of the Indians. In mid-voyage, Artaud settled on The Theater and Its Double as the title for his seminal work on theater, and he proofed the final copy upon his return to France. Artaud was an erratic genius plagued by a lifelong mental illness, to which he finally succumbed. By the time The Theater and Its Double was printed in 1938, Artaud had been institutionalized and remained so until 1946.

The Theater and Its Double is a collection of visionary essays, heated lectures, formal manifestos, defensive letters, and insightful reviews. All the works were written between 1931 and 1936. Some of them had already appeared in periodicals and pamphlets or had been delivered as lectures, while others were written specifically for publication in book form. Artaud himself arranged the order of the works, ignoring the chronological sequence in which they were written.

Although the book is by no means the work of a systematic thinker, it does have a loosely defined shape, moving from generalities to specifics. First, it discusses the metaphysical foundations for Artaud’s plans to reform theater; then it shows how those plans would be put into action. In his preface, “The Theater and Culture,” Artaud notes the demise of Western culture and its inability to confront the crucial needs of the modern individual. Because culture is impotent and ineffectual, Artaud calls for a new art form centered on a dynamic theater. Next, Artaud gives form to his revolutionary ideas by focusing on three metaphors: the plague, the metaphysics of action, and alchemy. In each of the first three essays in the book (“The Theater and the Plague,” “Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene,” and “The Alchemical Theater”), Artaud describes a violent upheaval, a process of transformation, and a rite of purification. In these essays, Artaud speaks with a voice of prophetic urgency, mixing graphic descriptions with deeply mystical pronouncements. He compares his theater to the plague. Both are violent and cataclysmic events which overturn the social order and purge the population. By reproducing the chaotic effects of the plague, theater can purify an audience through a “redeeming epidemic,” much like a vaccine. Second, Artaud compares the theater to “metaphysics in action.” Through the presentation of a series of signs and symbols, the theater becomes a transcendent experience which elevates the audience into a world of spiritual ecstasy. Finally, Artaud compares theater to alchemy. Both use essential ingredients and symbolic formulas to create a physical form and to distill it into a spiritual essence. By using these metaphors to explain his views on theater, Artaud sets the tone for the rest of his book: Theater is a powerful force that can work a magical transformation upon an audience. The next two essays in the book advance this theme as they contrast Western theater, which is detached and divorced from the crucial myths of humanity, with Oriental theater, which is vital, physical, and transcendental. Having established the purpose of his new theater and its roots in Oriental drama, Artaud, in his next essay, “No More Masterpieces,” urges modern theater to abandon its traditional repertoire of time-worn and irrelevant works and to create a new theater that speaks directly to the needs of the times. Interweaving all his previous themes, Artaud finally pulls together his ideas into a plan of action. In two manifestos, interrupted by a series of letters clarifying his position, Artaud clearly outlines the form of his new Theatre of Cruelty, detailing its structure and purpose. Artaud concludes with an article on acting, followed by two reviews that illustrate his ideas. Thus, The Theater and Its Double moves clearly from the abstract to the concrete, from theory to practice.

All the works in the book hammer home Artaud’s major theme. The modern age is one of anxiety and uncertainty. Art and culture have grown stagnant and detached. Modern theater, in particular, has lost touch with its audience. Artaud’s remedy is a new, revitalized theater based on violent images and on ritualized performance techniques that have the ability to move an audience intensely. For this transformation to take place, theater must be reformed in all of its aspects.

Critical Context

Artaud lived in a time in which realism was under attack from a number of literary movements. One such movement was surrealism, which stressed dream visions and advocated striking juxtapositions of disparate images. Artaud was active in the surrealist movement but soon broke away from it for political reasons. Most of his critical writings focus on the experimentation with language and on the anarchical nature of poetry. The Theater and Its Double is the culmination of his thinking. In it, he sees theater as the ultimate art form, one that can totally escape language and logic. Unfortunately, Artaud was not able to realize his dreams; his own ventures in theater were dismal failures. His ideas were to come to fruition in the artistic revolution of the 1960’s. His book reads almost like a blueprint for the changes in the avant-garde theater that were to occur more than two decades later. Traditional theater spaces were abandoned, and theater moved into the streets, into churches, into abandoned warehouses, into rock quarries. Partially influenced by Artaud, American director Richard Schechner produced plays in a garage, put the audience in the center of the action, and created multilevel theater spaces. Julian Beck, another American influenced by Artaud, created ritual theater encouraging direct contact with audience members. British director Peter Brook helped organize a company called The Theatre of Cruelty. Its productions experimented with chants, ritual dance, symbolic props, and other techniques proposed by Artaud. During this period, enormous puppets replaced actors, classical plays were rewritten, performance pieces were created without using playwrights, and psychedelic light shows became the craze. Realistic productions gave way to a theater of fantastic and phantasmagoric images. Artaud was alive and well and his book became a best-seller among the leading theater practitioners of the avant-garde.

Dramatic criticism was also influenced by Artaud. Major theater journals abandoned literary criticism and began to focus on the science of performance studies as theater branched out into the fields of anthropology and structuralism. Everything from voodoo rituals to modern carnivals became the subject matter for this discipline. Artaud’s vision of a mystical theater thus radically changed the concept of theatrical performance. Whether one agrees with its theories, The Theater and Its Double has become required reading for any serious student of the theater. Artaud stands with Bertolt Brecht as one of the leading voices in modern theater.

Bibliography

Bermel, Albert. Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, 1977.

Costich, Julia F. Antonin Artaud, 1978.

Esslin, Martin. Antonin Artaud, 1976.

Greene, Naomi. Antonin Artaud: Poet Without Words, 1970.

Hayman, Ronald. Artaud and After, 1977.

Knapp, Bettina. Antonin Artaud: Man of Vision, 1969.

Sellin, Eric. The Dramatic Concepts of Antonin Artaud, 1968.