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The Artaudian Performance

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Franziska Schroeder
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The Artaudian Performance
Franziska Schroeder
School of Arts Culture and Environment
University of Edinburgh
December 2003
franziska@lautnet.net

This paper is a chapter extracted from my forthcoming doctoral thesis on the body in
performance. The Artaudian Performance" follows a chapter entitled The Bergsonian
Performance.

The French dramatist, actor, poet and artist Antonin Artaud explored in its fullest the body as
"site of all human transformation, liberation and independence"; (Barber, p72) the creation of a
body without organs constructed as a revolt against the judgment of God. (Barber, p99)
In his Theatre of Cruelty (ToC, 1976) Artaud advocates the body as being able to stand alone.
For him all there is, is a body. The body is the body, alone it stands (Artaud, 1977, p59). For
Artaud "man is badly constructed", and the organisms are enemies of the body. He goes further
when he states that reality has not been constructed as the legitimate organs of the human body
are still to be composed and set (ToC, 1976).
The body becomes forced into visual materialism. In his radio play "To Have Done With The
Judgement of God" (THD, Sontag, 1976), Artaud, through sound, compels the visual body to
absence. It is in that play that Artaud expressed that whatever enters and leaves the body, such as
ideas and thoughts, excrements and "god" are excess organs.
For Artaud the body only consists of soft, pliable meat, but in fact who we really need to be in
order to live is to be someone, to be someone, one must have a bone, not be afraid to show the
bone, and to lose the meat in the process. (THD, Sontag, 1976)
In Artaud, due to the body's vulnerable softness and pliability, the body becomes a surface for
constant insults, assaults, attacks and woundings. In his drawings1, the body is often spread out,
dissected as in an autopsy session. Artaud draws shattered fragments of human figures, and in his
later drawings Artaud destroys his friends' bodies and faces - the body assaulted.
Artaud was lead to the idea of a "new gathering together of the activity of the human world: the
idea of a new anatomy. My drawings are anatomies in action" (Barber, p78).

How is it that we can relate the Artaudian concept of the assaulted body to performance?
We are aware of various performance situations that aim at assaulting the body, be it human or
animal. To mind come the slaughtering of animals on stage in the 1980s by Alice Cooper, as
well as the performances by the Catalan performance group La Fura dels Baus. The group uses
the performance space to cram a standing, and very soon hysterically running, audience into
contained spaces; caging members into corners in order to pull individuals up on stage. Up there,
on reconstructed guillotines and torture tables, they are to be splashed with blood, their shirts cut
open, buckets of an indiscernible, disgusting stinking fluid poured over them. The group rides on
giant metal machines that spurt fire and flash bright lights at the audience, thereby creating a
high-voltage technology performance environment. The spectacle is of course accompanied by
most powerful and pulsating sounds, drumming the audience into obedience. This polysensory
performance is centred on making the audience feel uncomfortable, disconcerted; destroying their
expectancy of a comfortable and safe performance environment: a veritable assault not only on

1
most of Artaud's drawings stem from after receiving over 50 sessions of electroshock treatment in a French asylum.

1
the body, but also on our mind that had up to the start of the performance rested so assured of a
forthcoming peaceful and pleasant event2.

In fact Artaud himself worked with various theatres, leaving a tremendous mark on Western
theatre theory. Artauds ideal form of theatre surely influenced La Furas performances, as he
himself saw performance not as a perfectly planned and ordered event. He opposed the idea of the
armoured primacy of the artist as well as the idea of preserving the directors authority. But most
of all Artaud created his ideal metaphor for the theatre - the plague. As with the disease, no
human is supposed to be responsible for it; it somehow originates through divine powers. The
performance becomes a frantic spectacle in which there is no order or focus; the disintegration of
all social forms, values as much as random, unexpected and unnatural behaviour is a the centre of
his theatre.
Artauds ideal was to transform text into hieroglyph, the spectacle into cruelty and performance
into affective athleticism (CTAG, p48). By shaping text as theatrical hieroglyphs, Artaud makes
us see significance beyond the text, and as text expressed as signs can destroy meaning and order,
it requires less interpretation of meaning. In that way Artaud was able to create a world rather
than represent it (CTAG, p49).

Although Artaud reassured us that what he entitled the Theatre of Cruelty did not imply
theatre of sadistic violence, it was akin to violence. Artaud did advocate a spectacle that was
more felt than seen: The spectator will go to the theatre the way he goes to the surgeon or
dentist. In the same state of mind knowing, of course, that he will not die, but that it is a serious
thing, and that he will not come out of it unscathed He must be totally convinced that we are
capable of making him scream. (CTAG, p51; and Sontag 1976; p157, Oeuvres completes, 2:17.)
It is through this breaking of the barrier between performer and audience that the event becomes
cruel as the performers actions have immediate consequences for the spectator. The event has
ceased to be pure contained images on stage; the spectacle submerges as well as dominates the
viewer (CTAG, p51); and it is once more that the body assaulted can triumph.

On a level of assault that displays less physical but rather moral attacks, we can consider the epic
theatre of German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brechts idea, rather than the spectator
becoming too involved in the story told, was to alienate the viewer by using what is termed
Verfremdungs-Effekt. By employing certain theatrical devices the spectator is constantly being
made aware that s/he is taking part in a production rather than in a real life situation. Through the
Verfremdungs-Effekt the audience is supposed to become alienated from the action, and an
attempt to focus the viewers attention towards the social and political ideas of the characters on
stage is made. In Brechts theatre the performer may affront public taste or morals; hence creating
an outlet for the audience to become actively involved (even if not physical). Just as in Artauds
Theatre of Cruelty in Brechts epic theatre the body assaulted is the focal point.

Similarly to Artauds idea of a spectacle more felt than seen one could mention Brazilian theatre
director Augusto Boals Theatre of the Oppressed developed during the 1950s and 1960s.
The idea in Boals theatre is to transform the traditional stage performance into a dialogue
between audience and staged action, to get people to interact and to think critically. The viewer in
Boals terms becomes a spect-actor, an activated spectator that takes an active part in the
theatre. And of course, just as in the other activating forms of theatre, the performer or audience
may become physically assaulted.
A maybe more extreme case of the body assaulted, and the body assaulted here tends to be that of
animals more than that of humans, can be seen in Hermann Nitschs "orgy and mystery theatre".

2 this applies at least for those attending the performance for the first time

2
Nitsch, the principal figure in the Viennese "actionist" movement, developed the o.m.theatre in
1957, and has since staged various such orgiastic Gesamtkunstwerke. His Six-Day Orgies-
Mysteries Theatre of 1998 comprises of a series of rituals featuring animal sacrifice,
bloodletting, mock crucifixions and bacchanalian cavorting in the midst of animal innards and
smashed tomatoes (VA, 2000).

Thinking of some music examples we could consider the minimalist pieces of Terry Riley or
Steve Reich with their repetitive prolonged action requiring machinist timing and precision, as an
assault on the body.

If most of above-mentioned forms of theatre, spectacles, events and performances have the
potential to let the body assaulted triumph, one wonders whether there is, or whether there should
be, a way of escaping these assaults. Reacting to the performance may be one answer, and we
know that certain performances have triggered such, at times rather unpredictable and violent,
responses, assaults on part of the spectators. Such reactions could be seen in the stink bombs
throwing attacks of the camelots du roi against Buuel and Dalis surrealist film Lage dOr
in Paris in 1930 (CTAG, p.29). Before that Stravinskys premier of the Rite of Spring in 1913
was responded to by showering the stage with tomatoes. Reactions against futurist performances
involved not solely the throwing of vegetables but also the manhandling of performers (CTAG,
p28). By responding physically, in an attempt to protect ourselves from violent outbursts of the
performers, we may be able to protect ourselves from physical assault and assault others in the
process. However, in an Artaudian sense the body assaulted can never be remedied. Or at least
not until we somehow manage to realise Artauds idea of the new anatomy of the human body,
in which the legitimate organs will first have to be composed and set.

The Nothing-to-do
Through the fact that Artaud considers the body as soft meat, seen purely as an entity without
legitimate organs, he has opened up the way and even made it justifiable for us to engage in
performances that centre on the assault of the body. Above performance situations exemplify the
notion of the body assaulted in a rather literal way.
We might also consider performance situations and the body assaulted on another level. For this,
we shall briefly inquire into the actual meaning of the word assault. The word assault is on a
literal level about attack, invasion and the application of force; it is something offensive and
violent. And is it not more likely for assault to take place when the thing to be assaulted is
somehow laid bare, vulnerable, exposed? The wounded bird lying on the street, not able to fly
away is exposed and becomes much more likely to be attacked by the stray dog. It is this
exposure that may function as a sort of prerequisite for the assault that I would like to examine
more closely.
When we talk about a great performers appearance, and I particularly have in mind a
performance by a musician, we tend to comment obsessively on bodily characteristics, on her
posture, mastery of control, bodily tension and comportment.

And although I believe such body awareness, and the way the body is being guided or directed
through a performance is the most essential asset of a performer, it is at the same time that which
reveals, more than anything else, the performers vulnerability. It is then that in the nothing-to-
do, and this nothing-to-do does not imply not doing, contrarily to the belief that difficult
movements, fast passages, long monologues are the most exposing for a performer, reveal the
bodys potential impotence most. It is then surprising to see that the nothing-to-do is often not
given as much thought as the rehearsing of the all-to-do. This is possibly more true in the case of
musicians rehearsing a piece of music than in the case of actors rehearsing a theatre play. It tends
to be the case that actors have a much greater awareness of their bodies as a whole, and are much

3
more likely to be aware of the bodys vulnerability that the nothing-to-do may expose (part of
their training tradition, not in musicians training).

One work that addresses the phenomenon of the nothing-to-do is of course John Cages infamous
433, a work displaying a deep involvement with the nothing-to-do in music. We know that
433 was inspired by Cage sitting in an anechoic chamber when he realised that he was able to
hear his nervous system ringing and his blood circulating (Warburton, 2001).
Cage concluded that sounds were constantly being made, whether intended or not, and often
without us noticing them. In addition to showing that by the absence of music, silence becomes
disclosed as an autonomous musical phenomenon, Cage created the perfect situation for the body
assaulted: during those 433 the audiences as well as the performers exposure to the nothing-to-
do is at its height.
Similarly, some of the 1960s compositions by La Monte Young give rise to the body assaulted.
Those compositions, demonstrating an intent focus on time and pitch relations, also prepare a
fertile ground for the nothing-to-do, and once again the nothing-to-do does not signify not doing
nothing. We can for example cite La Monte Youngs Composition 1960 #7, comprised of the
sustained interval of a perfect fifth with the instruction "to be held for a long time"; the straight
line drawn on a file card in Composition 1960 #9, or the instructions "Draw a straight line and
follow it in Composition 1960 #10.
It is in La Monte Youngs works, just as in Cages 433 that the way the body is being guided
through the nothing-to-do exposes the body most, and the potential for assault has been created.
Just as in La Monte Youngs or Cages compositions, we find a similar potential for an assault of
the body in Samuel Becketts play Waiting for Godot. The extreme lengths of silences in the
dialogue, the prolonged reflections and pauses that are marked by Beckett in his directions to the
actors - acting directions that give rise to the nothing-to-do - we focus our awareness towards the
performers actions.

And it is in the performing body performing the nothing-to-do, making way to exposing the
working of the body itself, and therefore preparing the grounds for a possible assault, that
emotion is generated more than in the thinking mind. Artaud stresses the need for cultivating an
intense introspective concentration in order to most powerfully express emotion. For Artaud to
become conscious of physical obsession, of muscles quivering with affectivity, is equivalent, as
in the play of breaths, to unleashing this affectivity in full force, giving it a mute but profound
range and an extraordinary violence (CTAG, p54). And it is through the audiences emulation of
the conveyed tension in their own bodies, their own muscles and nerves tingle in sympathy with
the performers body on display, that the audience feels the force of the emotions most. They are
made to feel and recognise the reality in the performance. The audience member must be able to
identify herself breath by breath and beat by beat. . To know in advance what point of the
body to touch is the key to throwing the spectator into magical trance (Artaud, 1958, p140).

It is here, in the nothing-to-do that exposure, and consequently the inherent potential for the
bodys break-down, is revealed, and the body assaulted has once more taken place.
Through the body assaulted we may become conscious of its potential for break-down, of its
exposure and fragility, but at the same time the consistent attacks repeatedly beat the skeletal
body out of a pivotal position and obstruct us of being conscious of the world. The need for its
resurrection may be its subsequent destiny.

subsequent chapter is the The Pontydian Performance

4
 Bibliography:

Artaud, A. The body is the body, trans. Roger McKeon, Semiotext(e), Anti-Oedipus, vol. 2,
no.3, p.59, 1977

Artaud, A. Selected Writings. ed. by Susan Sontag. Berkeley: UC Press, 1976.

Artaud, A. Selected Writings. ed. Susan Sontag, trans. Helen Weaver, New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1976, Oeuvres completes.

Artaud, A. Theatre and its Double, - essay: An Affective Athleticism, trans. Richards, M.C.,
New York Grove Press, 1958; p133-41

Barber, Stephen The screaming body, Creation Books Publication, 1999.

Boal, Augusto Theatre of the Oppressed, translated by Charles A. McBride and Maria-Odilia
Leal McBride, Theatre Communications Group, 1990.

Boal., Augusto The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, trans
Adrian Jackson, London: Routledge, 1995.

Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London, 1962.

Moran, Dermot and Mooney, Timothy. The Phenomenology Reader, Routledge Publisher,
2002.

Radio Play: "To Have Done With The Judgement of God", 1947.

The New Bergson, ed. John Mullarkey, Manchester University Press 1999.

Warburton, Dan: THE SOUND OF SILENCE: the music and aesthetics of the Wandelweiser
Group, SIGNAL to NOISE Magazin, 2001.
http://www.timescraper.de/SOUNDOFSILENCE.htm as of Dec 2003

CTAG:
Harding. James M., ed. Contours of the Theatrical Avant-Garde, Performance and Textuality,
University of Michigan Press, 2000.

ToC:
Theatre of Cruelty in: Selected Writings. ed. Susan Sontag, trans. Helen Weaver, New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976, Oeuvres completes.

THD:
"To Have Done With The Judgement of God" in: Sontag, 1976; online copy on:
http://www.megabaud.fi/~karttu/tekstit/artaud.htm (as of Dec 2003)

VA:
Article on the Viennese Actionists, Brant Publications, Inc. and Gale Group, 2000.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1248/9_88/65069546/p1/article.jhtml - as of Dec 2003

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