The Theatre before Its Double: Artaud Directs in the Alfred Jarry Theatre

Abstract

It is ironic that the works of Antonin Artaud, who called for the rejuvenation of theatre as such, come to us today not on their own, but through an unusually dense filter: a peculiarly persistent critical/theoretical apparatus doubles his own writings and practice. Artaud's work has occupied a cultish space in both French and English criticism for several decades. Each major trend in Artaud scholarship has reinforced the image of Artaud as a brilliant/mad theoretician and inspirational writer but a failed theatre practitioner—worse, one doomed to failure. The French school of criticism has plumbed the depths of the paradoxes of Artaud's oeuvre, examining the impossibility of reconciling the inadequacy of expression with the need to express. Derrida has argued that Artaud's projects, by their nature, by his nature, cannot succeed: They betray him the moment they begin to be articulated; they cannot stand upright the minute they leave his body. Much French criticism takes Artaud's madness and uses it as a touchstone for discussion of his legacy. The French Artaud begins at the asylum in Rodez.