Antonin Artaud: il teatro come mezzo per rifare la vita

Abstract

One of the first voices of the twentieth century that invoked the essence of the theater as the man in action, in his entirety as body mind, is that of Antonin Artaud. His writings reflect his tormented existential and intellectual parable in search of a truth of thought, of words, of the living body of the actor. A research that Artaud conducts with implacable rigor. In this short essay the developments of his thought will be brought into focus from the Theater of Cruelty to the theatre to recreate life, as an alternative experience of life itself, because it is essential to what is inalienable even in the condition of being, or the body. Relations and correspondence with Jean Paulhan, director of the «NouvelleRevueFrançaise», with the poet and essayist André Rolland de Renéville, with the writer and philosopher André Daumal, with the painter and designer Alexandre de Salzmann, will play a key role in this development They will provide the means to approach Eastern philosophies and religions, to discover some of the techniques of Eurythemic gymnastics by Émile Jacques-Dalcroze, to learn the basic principles of the teaching of Georges Ivanovic Gurdjieff. Inspired by their work and research, in the last stretch of his itinerary, Artaud will move further away from the idea of a theatre that needs to be redone. His attention will move beyond the boundaries of the slavery imposed by the representation, to merge theatre and life in the most audacious of the enterprises: to reinvent the Body.