The Life and Theatre of Antonin Artaud

By Tim Dalgleish

This play by actor Tim Dalgleish tells the story of Antonin Artaud from his early years of aspiration, when he hoped to be part of the theatrical establishment, through to his final years as a suffering, iconoclastic outsider. It offers a powerful stage portrait of one of theatre's most radical and influential practitioners. (Contains strong language.)
Antonin Artaud was a film star, poet, playwright, director and theorist, whose writings transformed modern theatre. In his early career he acted in films by Abel Gance and Carl Theodor Dreyer, two of early cinema's greatest directors. His screenplay for The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) strongly influenced Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Salvador Dal and Luis Bu uel.
For several years he ran the Alfred Jarry Theatre in Paris with Roger Vitrac, producing and directing original plays by writers such as Paul Claudel and August Strindberg. His life, however, was marked by intense personal suffering and mental anguish. He is best remembered for The Theatre and Its Double (1938), which set out his ideas for the so-called Theatre of Cruelty.
Just after the Second World War, in 1946, Artaud was released from eight years of confinement in various asylums. Members of the Parisian intellectual and artistic community - including Picasso, Duchamp, Sartre and Gide - helped raise funds for his release. A new collection of his essays and letters on Mexico, Au pays des Tarahumaras, had recently been published. A benefit performance and gala were held for him at the Th tre Sarah-Bernhardt, and he even performed solo at the Th tre du Vieux-Colombier, despite being physically wrecked, almost toothless and ravaged by years of drug use. This brief renaissance was short-lived: Artaud died just outside Paris at Ivry in March 1948.
This play brings these episodes to the stage, exploring Artaud's visionary ideas, his breakdowns and confinements, and his enduring impact on modern theatre.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1500965588
• ISBN13: 9781500965587
• Release Date: March 2016
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 8.0"