Although Artaud's poetic writings about the theatre were not celebrated during his life (except perhaps by Anais Nin and a few others), his works, especially the essays contained in The Theatre and Its Double, were considered an indispensable reference in the development of experimental theatre in the 60's (Grotowski, The Living Theatre, etc). Even after his influence seemed to wane after that time, his writings are re-examined in the context of critical theory and philosophy. Its worth looking at two essays by Derrida "The Theatre Of Cruelty And The Closure Of Representation" and "La Parole Soufflé" translated in the volume Writing and Difference. The Preface to The Theatre and Its Double, entitled, "The Theatre and Culture", is a great place to start for theatre artists. It ends with the famous quote (see left).
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"Furthermore, when we speak the word ‘life.’ it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from the its surface of fact, but to that fragile fluctuating center which forms never reach. And if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames."
Julian Beck (1925 - 1985) is the co-founder (with Judith Malina) of The Living Theatre. We will post a more extensive page about Julian in the future. But in the meantime here is the first meditation from his book The Life of the Theatre, published in 1972 by City Lights.
“There is a misery of the body and a misery of the mind, and if the stars, whenever we looked at them, poured nectar into our mouths, and the grass became bread, men would still be sad. We live in a system that manufactures sorrow, spilling it out of its mill, the waters of sorrow, ocean, storm, and we drown down, dead, too soon.
“Theatre is like a boat, it is only so big, but uprising is the reversal of the system, and revolution is the tirning of the tides.”
written in jail in Ouro Preto, Brazil, 6 May 1971