Het anti-theater van Antonin Artaud. Een onderzoek naar de veralgemeende artistieke transgressie, toegepast op het werk van Romeo Castellucci en de Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio

Abstract

What does it mean to violate the law on a theatrical stage? This is the central question in the following examination of modern theatre, beginning with the avant-garde, but also including the contemporary and iconoclastic work of the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. For the historical avant-garde, art could be the gateway to a new and liberated reality. But then all of existing reality first had to be demolished, and its laws consistently violated. Ultimately, this transgressive programme ends in discouragement and self-sabotage. Such an 'anti-theatre' has been explored most extensively in the writings of the French director and essayist Antonin Artaud. A careful exploration of Artaud's work, emphasizing his actual theatrical productions, shows that this paradox does not necessarily lead to a dead end. Generalized transgression may lead to a theatre that belongs more to philosophy than to art itself.