There Are Those Who Go To The

Cruelty Signifies Rigor, Implacable Intention And Decision, Irreversible And Absolute Determination.

Theater Of Cruelty Means A Theater Difficult And Cruel For Myself First Of All. And, On The Level Of Performance, It Is Not The Cruelty We Can Exercise Upon Each Other By Hacking At Each Other’s Bodies, Carving Up Our Personal Anatomies, Or, Like Assyrian Emperors, Sending Parcels Of Human Ears, Noses, Or Neatly Detached Nostrils Through The Mail, But The Much More Terrible And Necessary Cruelty Which Things Can Exercise Against Us. We Are Not Free. And The Sky Can Still Fall On Our Heads. And The Theater Has Been Created To Teach Us That First Of All.

There Is In Every Madman A Misunderstood Genius Whose Idea, Shining In His Head, Frightened People, And For Whom Delirium Was The Only Solution To The Strangulation That Life Had Prepared For Him.

To Break Through Language In Order To Touch Life Is To Create Or Re-create The Theater.

Artaud Sought To Remove Aesthetic Distance, Bringing The Audience Into Direct Contact With The Dangers Of Life. By Turning Theatre Into A Place Where The Spectator Is Exposed Rather Than Protected, Artaud Was Committing An Act Of Cruelty Upon Them.