Antonin+Artaud

  Antonin Artaud was a French poet, playwright, essayist, director of theater, and actor. He was born in Marseilles on the 4th of September in 1896, and died in Paris on the 4th of March, 1948. His father worked as a shipfitter, and his mother was a housewife of Greek origin. At the tender age of five, he was almost killed by a meningitis attack. At the age of 14, he had founded a literary magazine and kept it running for almost four years. Throughout his teenage life, he was afflicted with chronic head pain, and in 1914, he suffered an attack of neurasthenia. Using opium to treat it, he quickly became addicted. Two years later, he joined the army, but was discharged less than a year later due to his mental instability and drug addiction. He lived in a clinic in Switzerland for the next two years, until 1920. Immediately after his release, he went to Paris, still under medical supervision. He found work as a set and costume designer, a screen actor for Charless Dullin, an actor and director. Later he became very interested in a surrealist movement headed by André Breton, and in 1923 he published a book of symbolic verse and poetry which was greatly influenced by Mallarmé, Verlaine, and Rimbaud, fellow surrealists. The book was titled Tric trac du ciel, or Backgammon of the Sky. Two years later, during the zenith of his surrealist phase, he published L'Ombilic des limbes, or Umbilical Limbo, a collection of letters, prose, poems, dialogue; it contained only a single complete work, which was the five minute long play Le Jet de sang, or the Jet of Blood, which wasn't produced over 40 years later. However, his time as a surrealist with Breton was broken in 1926, when Breton became a part of the communist party, and attempted to lead his entire following into the party himself. Antonin's love of the surreal was not diminished, and continued his work on that subject, writing the script for La Coquille et le clergyman, which by many is considered to be his greatest achievement in surrealistic film, and perhaps even the greatest surreal film ever made. He also wrote another book, similar to L'Ombilic des limbes, a collection of many different forms of literature called Les P'e-nerfs, or Nerve Scales. All in all, during his career, Antonin acted in 23 motion pictures, as well as writing two himself, solidifying his place as one of the greatest French actors, and writer of some of the greatest surrealist pieces in the history of man. He also, interestingly enough, wanted to create a form of theater where words were not necessary. In the orders for one of his plays, he states that instruments of the orchestra must be "treated as objects and as part of the set." The lighting was done just so to induce"an element of thinness, density, and opaqueness, with a view to producing the sensations of heat, cold, anger, fear, etc." The costuming was "age-old costumes of ritualistic intent," while the stage was to be "a single site, without partition or barrier of any kind." He also describes more surreal additons: "Manikins, enormous masks, objects of strange proportions will appear." He also decide that "There will not be any set.", and no script: "We shall not act a written play, but we shall make attempts at direct staging, around themes, facts, or known works.". Although his ideal, theoretical plan for all performance of theater was never realized before his death in 1948, it caused fellow play-producers to be far more exact in the design of elaborate sets, of dance and movement, and of an attention to the legendary and mythical (another one of Antonin's desires for theater). His influence on every surrealist and in fact every playwright since his time is evident. This essay is very well written. Just the perfect amount of information. I was going to say that you could seperate into paragraphs when I first saw it. However, after reading it I dont think you really need to. -Joy

Sources:

"Antonin Artaud Biography | Encyclopedia of World Biography Biography."__BookRags.com: Book Summaries, Study Guides__. 30 Sep. 2009 .

" Antonin Artaud Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Antonin Artaud ." Encyclopedia - Online Dictionary | Encyclopedia.com: Get facts, articles, pictures, video. 30 Sep. 2009 .

"Antonin Artaud: Biography from Answers.com."__Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more__. 30 Sep. 2009 .

"Antonin Artaud." __The Internet Movie Database (IMDb)__. 30 Sep. 2009 .