Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, theorist, poet, actor, and theater director.

His essay, On the Balinese Theater was featured in NTU CCA Singapore's first publication, Theatrical Fields: Critical Strategies in Performance, Film, and Video (2016)

Antonin

Artaud

2016

1896

France

1948

Playwright

Theorist

Poet

Actor

Theater director

Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, theorist, poet, actor, and theater director. His seminal work, The Theatre and Its Double, was published in 1938 and introduced his vision of “the theater of cruelty,” a form of nonnarrative theater that breaks with the Western tradition and becomes a vehicle for the audience to experience and express unconscious fears and repressed emotions. Artaud was associated with the Surrealists in Paris during the 1920s, and after splitting with them, went on to form the short-lived but influential Theatre Alfred Jarry, with Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron, in 1926. His theory has a profound impact upon the work of modern playwrights, from Samuel Beckett to Jean Genet.