Drama Reflection- Lesson One

As our new production we are doing installation theatre, today we studied a practitioner called Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). Artaud invented a type of theatre called ‘theatre of cruelty’. This launches an attack on the audience’s subconscious in an attempt to release deep-rooted fears and anxieties.

      He wanted the audience to feel something similar to what they have nightmares or how they feel/felt when they had their worst nightmare. It is almost like someone shaking up a bottle of your worst nightmares and that bottle explodes and all of what you fear is let out in the open and it’s all to do with how the mind reacts to what just happened. It’s like putting you into a situation that you have never ever been in before and what you would never want to be out through.

We did little workshops in small groups to try and do exactly what he did and to see how the audience reacted. It’s all about maximising the screams, cries and the symbolic gestures. Also it’s about taking the extremes of human nature and graphically displaying them on stage.

My personal response to this sort of theatre is quite positive I really enjoyed the first session on this as it was something I’d never looked into before nor heard of. You never know how to react to what is happening in front of you or around you as most of the group figured out this morning when sir was showing us. No one knew what was happening and it was quite scary if I’m honest. I wanted it to end, it was strange and it was a situation like that so I guess Mr Leigh was successful in what he was trying to show us.

In conclusion I seem to have learnt something new and it’s actually really interesting. I’m looking forward to what’s to come later on in the topic.