- Bibliography: Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, Caldar & Boyars Limited, Great Britain, 1970
- Artaud was influenced by Balinese and Oriental theatre to create Theatre of Cruelty
- ‘We will try to centre our show around famous personalities, horrible crimes and superhuman self-sacrifices, demonstrating that it can draw out the powers struggling within them, without resorting to the dead imagery of ancient myths’
- ‘we believe ourselves able to associate mental pictures with dreams, effective in so far as they are projected with the required violence. And the audience will believe in the illusion of theatre on condition they really take it for a dream, nor for a servile imitation of reality. On condition it releases the magic freedom of daydreams, only recognisable when imprinted with terror and cruelty’
- ‘on the one hand we have the magnitude and scale of a show aimed at the whole anatomy, and on the other an intensive mustering of objects, gestures and signs used in a new spirit’
- ‘We cannot continue to prostitute the idea of theatre whose only value lies in its agonising magic relationship to reality and danger’
- ‘the magic beauty of the costumes modelled on ritualistic patterns’
- Language should not be done away with altogether but must be reduced to show serious importance like it has in dreams or into some kind of code
- Body language should also be reduced to precise signs and signals which can be recognised
- Everything on the stage should have a predetermined symbolic meaning
- Costume: certain costumes have a ritualistic significance and an innate beauty as they are close to the traditions which created them
- Actors must use ‘his own powers of persuasion’ –> There is no prescribed method of acting
- Every character should be typified
- Theatre has always been linked with religion
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