The Theatre of Cruelty

‘Le théâtre de la cruauté’ (The Theatre of Cruelty) was the name given by the French actor, director, poet, and essayist Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) to a theatrical project he pursued between 1931 and 1935. His 1938 book Le théâtre et son double (The Theatre and Its Double) was a collection of his writings on the theatre that related to that project. The use of the word ‘cruelty’ was intended to imply rigour and discipline, and the permanence of cruelty in existence. The approach to theatre-making that Artaud advocated grew from a belief in the potential of the stage to generate and project a language of its own, one that possibly included textual material but alongside visual and kinetic elements. In his two manifestoes for the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud gave examples of the form the theatre might adopt, and the kinds of subject matter it might approach.