TRDA 3245W Lecture 9: Artaud's Theatre of Fear[483]
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Sam Gritz
HIST of Theatre
Professor Stokes
10/26/2017
Artaud’s Theatre of Fear
As children, the horrors and figments of our imagination that we create tend to be the root
of what we fear the most. Both types of nightmares make our sleep restless. Whether it be the
supernatural, arachnids, or the dark, all are common to mankind because fear is a stimulus that is
shared amongst everyone. The theatre is a space where actors can take these fears on through
expressive acting, while the audience can relax knowing they are safe and removed from any
danger that these fears can cause. When this space is removed, and the danger becomes real, the
fear is enhanced tenfold. This danger, although it is not real, can leave an impression that can stay
in our minds for a lifetime. But how is this accomplished? Firstly, a focus on man’s most horrific
fears must be defined, and these fears are the ones that lurk behind our conscious awareness and
take up space in the dark crevices of our subconscious mind. If we are stripped of everything and
left with just our essence, our being, we begin to question our existence. The need to dig deep into
the subconscious mind is exactly what famous playwright Antonin Artaud strived for. He
employed this tactic through the violent stimulus of the senses. The fear and danger that was
created in each of his plays represented his fears of society as well as the fears captured within his
schizophrenic mind. These fears can be broken down into two components: eyes open fear and
eyes closed fear. Eyes open fear is the shock that we experience which stimulates all of our senses;
eyes closed fear is the abstract and existential fears and themes that leave a lasting impression on
us mentally or implicitly. This two-component theory of fear describes the many personal fears
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that Antonin Artaud struggled with. He attempted to translate them into his plays through bizarre
techniques. His fears of existential being, sexuality, religion, primitive being, and turbulent society
are all represented in his play The Spurt of Blood; they are defining features of his famous Theatre
of Cruelty as well as Theatre and its Double. Plays such as The Spurt of Blood were not understood
by audiences. This play only managed to frighten them, instead of changing how they think.
However, after Artaud’s death, the theories that he developed would change how playwrights
thought about theatre’s purpose to represent deep, sacred truths. Consequently, he took theatre to
a deeper, darker, and more frightening level than ever before.
In October of 1924, Artaud joined the Surrealist movement, and in the years leading up to
this, he experienced an inability to capture and express his thoughts, both of which were a direct
consequence of his schizophrenia. These years captured the many eyes closed type fears, such as
fear of the existential, that haunted Artaud daily. Artaud believed that thought came from the
subconscious and exists in a state that comes before words. His thinking parallels the ancient Greek
dilemma of whether language was necessary for the formulation of language, but, unlike the
Greeks, he worried less about the language and feared more the idea of his thoughts disappearing
back into his subconscious. In Correspondence avec Jacques Rivière, Jacques Rivière, a famous
French writer, critic, editor, and intellectual exchanged letters back and forth with Artaud. Artaud
mentioned to him that he “suffers from a frightful illness of the mind…” and whenever he seizes
a form of thought he “holds it fast out of fear of losing the entire thought.” (Greene, p. 60) This
paralysis, caused by his schizophrenia, is another reason why he also feared his existential being.
Without control of thoughts, emotions, feelings, and speech, Artaud had no control over his
personality and mentions that he felt “castrated” to his slightest impulses (Greene, p. 83); the
intentional use of the word castration leads into another one his greatest fears: the fear of sexuality.
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The fear of sexuality falls under the category of eyes closed, but in The Spurt of Blood, he
employs eyes opened fear to express his polar views on masculinity and femininity; The wet nurse
character is an ideal representation of Artaud’s fear of femininity. He believes that women
consume man’s rational thought; eroticism is a form of cruelty. At the end of the play, a virtuous
Knight proclaims fearfully that the wet nurse is a “She-Devil” (Artaud, p. 381), and a multitude of
scorpions crawl out from beneath her vagina to attack the Knight. The vagina becomes an “organ
of violence” (Plunka, p. 228) and a tool of castration, something that Artaud was horrified of. His
fear of castration sprouts from the famous French philosopher Peter Abelard, who was castrated
by assassins that were called by his wife’s uncle. Artaud was so frightened by the thought of
castration that while he was held in an asylum he would exclaim horridly that he was being
followed by a castrated monk who would take the form of a woman (Greene, p. 88). In a production
of The Spurt Of Blood done by the Grusomhetens Teater of Norway, the director portrays Artaud’s
sexual agonies and juxtaposes them with a man and women’s vibrant love. The play has no words,
much like Artaud had intended, and the sounds that occur during the climax of the play are
frightening, unusual, and seem to put the audience in a dream-like trance. This contrast between
sexual agony and vibrant love also comes in the form of horrifying darkness that is pierced only
by a spotlight shone on the naked actor’s bodies. Without words, the audience is forced to pay
attention to the visual, and when sound is introduced, it comes as a frightening, and shocking
surprise. Another production, done by students of the Greyfell theatre, takes a different approach
to portray this sexual fear. Instead of a spotlight, the actor’s faces are painted white. In the opening
scene between the young man and the young woman, peaceful background music accompanies
their loving dialogue, but the actors themselves look like ghosts. This is an excellent metaphor for
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Document Summary
As children, the horrors and figments of our imagination that we create tend to be the root of what we fear the most. Both types of nightmares make our sleep restless. Whether it be the supernatural, arachnids, or the dark, all are common to mankind because fear is a stimulus that is shared amongst everyone. The theatre is a space where actors can take these fears on through expressive acting, while the audience can relax knowing they are safe and removed from any danger that these fears can cause. When this space is removed, and the danger becomes real, the fear is enhanced tenfold. This danger, although it is not real, can leave an impression that can stay in our minds for a lifetime. Firstly, a focus on man"s most horrific fears must be defined, and these fears are the ones that lurk behind our conscious awareness and take up space in the dark crevices of our subconscious mind.
