Video transcript
@The Arts Unit Art Bites – Antonin Artaud – 02. Practical exercises

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SUSAN GELDART: Hi, I'm Susan Geldart, and I'm a teacher from Cronulla High School. In our last episode, we looked at Antonin Artaud and his creation of Theatre of Cruelty. Remember that Artaud was preoccupied with the creation of the world and its desecration by humanity. The conflict existing between an individual's emotional life and the values and practises of society. The contrast of innocence, devotion, and love with depravity, loathing, and cruelty. And the wrath of the natural world.

So you see, it is all a little bizarre and weird and definitely challenges us to question the intention and motivation. It's not something you experience in 'Home and Away' and 'The Bold and the Beautiful'. Imagine the possibilities of these shows engaging in Theatre of Cruelty practises.

Just to recap on our last episode, remember that I said that Theatre of Cruelty isn't about being sadistic or masochistic. It came about because Artaud wanted to represent reality but his reality. He wanted to challenge the traditional fictional niceness of theatre that audiences had been used to and expose them to discomfort and distortion. Artaud's world was cruel and dark. He wanted audiences to be exposed to that and challenged by it.

Now we come to the part where you have a go to play with the deepest crevices of your minds. The following activities can take place in your drama class or with a little bit of flexibility and help from someone at home, you could work through them at home.

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Activity 1-- Mind warm up, Stream of consciousness writing

Our first activity as a warm up, a mind warm up. Grab a pen and paper or your drama log book. Find a quiet space. Set a timer, or the timer on your phone, for two minutes. Place your pen on the paper. You must not lose contact with the pen and paper. Keep the pen on the paper at all times. Don't lift it off. Close your eyes, and take in your surroundings through smell and sound.

Open your eyes. Start the timer, and write freely. Whatever comes into your mind, write it down. It could be single words, sounds, sentences that don't have to be connected in any way. It's like you're transcribing the thoughts in your mind. Don't judge your thoughts, just write them down as they pop into your head. Don't try to connect your thoughts. They can be as random as they come into your head. If your mind goes blank, you must still keep the pen in contact with the paper.

Once your two minutes is up, stop writing. The fun part is sharing each other's work. Here are three examples provided by my Year 11 drama class.

One, ew, lines. Why am I thinking about lines? What the heck? What in the heck?

Not what's happened in my group. Not going there. Stop myself. Right. Lines.

Leap. Two. Jazz. Mental health. Waking up. Dog.

There seems to be no blue pen. Not right. Onions. Though, I'm not sure.

Thermal rings and imaginative things. I don't know. Ewan's hair. Oh, damn. Ink paper is all.

And the last one, death. Tip tap. Nothing. Deep abyss. Still nothing.

Clock. Tocks. I want to rip this page out because it has none stuff on the back. Empty. Jealousy.

Broken dolls. Creepy laughter. It smells like. Look up. Day. What's up, dogs? Nothing much about.

This is a useful activity for play building. Take some of your ideas and see where it leads you. Keep a copy. I can guarantee when you read it again in a few weeks, you'll be completely confused about what was going on in your mind at the time.

Here's an extension activity for those of you who would like to further develop possibilities for devising a piece. Move into groups of four or five and read out your work. Decide on one person's writing, and devise a series of three tableaus to represent three significant words or sentences in the writing. It could be a word, adjective, noun, or a sound. How could you show the word 'bleep' in a tableau or in a sentence?

Once you've created a series of three tableau, bring them to life using only the three words, sounds, or the sentences in each scene. Think about movement, and see if you can include metaphor and symbolism into your work. See what unfolds. Don't try to make it make sense. Remember, this is all originated from someone's free thinking and thought processes.

Here's something else you could do. Keep a diary of your dreams. If you can remember your dreams, write them down soon as you wake, including as much detail as you can. Then, if you're happy to share, your class could come up with a Theatre of Cruelty style work based on your dream. Artaud's theatre strived to wake up the dormant dream images of our minds. If you have these written down, the content could stimulate your creativity.

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Activity 2-- Physical warm up, Slow motion tennis

Warm up 2 is a physical warm up. It's called slow motion tennis. Grab a partner if you're at school. If you're at home, you could invite someone from home to join you or choose a wall. In this case, you'll be playing squash. Put some space between yourself and your partner, and play a game of slow motion tennis with an imaginary ball, imaginary nets, court lines, and racket.

Proceed to play a game of tennis with your partner. This is a good opportunity to freshen up those improvisation skills of giving offers and accepting offers and extending. Go with it. No blocking. Try to allow your body to become superior to your mind.

Don't overthink what you are doing, your moves, et cetera. Focus purely on the physical aspect and how your body moves in time and rhythm. The longer you play and the more rigorously you play, the more likely you will detach from your mind and follow your body.

Have a third person on the sideline pushing you to keep going, urging you to physically invest in the game as much as you can. Allow your physical stamina to take over from your mind. How do you go? Are you exhausted? Did you lose your mind?

Artaud believed that actors' bodies needed to learn how to take control to be able to experiment with movement and stamina without allowing the mind to place limitations on consciousness. Artaud strived to push the limits of his actors until they reached physical exhaustion. If you're at home now, you can take a quick nap. But if you're at school, bad luck.

Let's move into our third activity.

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Activity 3-- Non verbal argument

Non-verbal arguments. Find a partner. This can be done face to face or online. You are to have an argument consisting of only sounds-- primal, aggressive sounds such as barks, howls, grunts, and moans. Manipulate the tone and pace of your argument as you proceed with the argument.

Keep going until you and your partner come to an ending.

This activity shows how an audience can interpret emotion without words. Sounds can convey the intensity of feeling in a non naturalistic, almost primal manner. Two. Repeat the exercise but this time, use one word each. You must stick to your chosen word and not change it. One word and one word only.

Again, this activity will help you to explore the basics of experimental theatre. You don't need language to evoke meaning. To use one of Artaud's quotes, 'Theatre of Cruelty serves not to entertain nor instruct but to effect'.

Let's move into our fourth activity, The impossible task.

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Activity 4-- The impossible task

In pairs, decide on an impossible task, and write it on a slip of paper, one slip of paper and one task per pair. Tasks could include, eat the wall. Open the door with your mind. Stare at the window until it opens.

Place the slips of paper in the centre of the circle, and each pair are to pick out one task. Label each other A and B. A must attempt to do the task, and B must drive A to do the task. Start off fairly leniently, but eventually push A until they can go no further. Push with your instructions. No physical contact, though.

The purpose of this task is to illustrate how the mind can be used to create the impossible. Ideas that you may never have previously thought of. Try and pay attention to the intensity of your facial expressions. Include sound and movement as you work through this activity. And once you can go no further, remember your actions. What they looked like and move into a space.

Create a short improvisation that include the character and physicality you just created. Put them into a setting and see what eventuates. Again, this activity is a good foundational stimulus for devising your own piece.

Well done. I'm sure there were some interesting characters evolving through this activity. Hopefully, no one actually ended up eating the wall.

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Activity 5-- Grimm's fairy tales

Our final activity is based on Grimm's fairy tales. These are excellent texts to use as a stimulus for Theatre of Cruelty devising because of their dark, inverted sense of the traditional Disney representations of fairy tales. You'll be able to find copies of Grimm's fairy tales on the internet.

Here is what I'd like you to do. In a small group of, say, four or five students, choose one of Grimm's fairy tales. Choose one that you're fairly familiar with and one that you all agree could lend itself to being explored under the eye of Antonin Artaud. Your task is to re-enact the story by using only sounds, exaggerated facial expressions, and slow motion movements. Each person is to take on a role, be it a human character or something more abstract, such as a tree in a forest of trees.

Again, think about the opportunities to manipulate symbols and metaphor such as a storm could symbolise the danger and risk foreshadowing Rapunzel's fate. Move in a way that could represent hair wrapping itself around trees and pulling to breaking point. Soundscapes are essential in Theatre of Cruelty. See what sounds you could come up with. You may be able to find a dark, atmospheric soundtrack to enhance the mood and intention.

Once you've created your piece, rehearse and rehearse, and make sure you have an ending to your piece. It doesn't have to represent a conventional ending of a fairy tale.

Now, you should be ready to show the rest of your class. To do this, I want you to place your audience amongst your performance space and characters to physically and emotionally immerse them in the story.

I'd love to see the finished product. Maybe keep working at it, and ask your teacher to submit it as an audition piece for one of the regional drama festivals. We don't receive many submissions for Theatre of Cruelty style pieces. Yours could be the first.

I hope you now have a better understanding of Antonin Artaud and how the Theatre of Cruelty emerged into the vast and varied world of theatre. Whilst much of his work went unnoticed during his lifetime, his work became hugely inspirational after his death in 1948 at the age of 52.

Artaud inspired theatre greats such as English theatre and film director Peter Brook. Even Jim Morrison of The Doors was influenced by our man, Antonin. I'd like to end with a quote from Susan Sontag, American writer, philosopher, and activist. Sontag wrote that Artaud's impact was so great that the course of all recent theatre in Western Europe and the Americas can be said to divide into two periods-- before Artaud and after Artaud.

So there you go. Good luck with your work. And more importantly, enjoy the experiences you create, and find the time to discuss with your classmates. You never know where this form of experiential theatre will take you on your drama journey.

Thanks for watching, and good luck with your exploration of Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty.