Antonin Artaud

Born            Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud
                          4 September 1896 Marseille, France
Died            4 March 1948 (aged 51) Paris, France
Cause of death Intestinal Cancer
Nationality   French
Education   Studied at the Collège du Sacré Couer
Occupation   Theatre director, poet, actor, artist
Known for   Theatre of Cruelty
Notable work   The Theatre and Its Double
Style           Erotica

The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid.
– Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66

[Nietzsche's] definition of cruelty informs Artaud's own, declaring that all art embodies and intensifies the underlying brutalities of life to recreate the thrill of experience ... Although Artaud did not formally cite Nietzsche, [their writing] contains a familiar persuasive authority, a similar exuberant phraseology, and motifs in extremis ...
– Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p.21-22

Artaud sought to remove aesthetic distance, bringing the audience into direct contact with the dangers of life. By turning theatre into a place where the spectator is exposed rather than protected, Artaud was committing an act of cruelty upon them.
– Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007, p.23

Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; he considered dreams, thoughts and delusions as no less real than the "outside" world. To him, reality appeared to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.
Artaud saw suffering as essential to existence and thus rejected all utopias as inevitable dystopia. He denounced the degradation of civilization, yearned for cosmic purification, and called for an ecstatic loss of the self.

Artaud was heavily influenced by seeing a Colonial Exposition of Balinese Theatre in Marseille. He read eclectically, inspired by authors and artists such as Seneca, Shakespeare, Poe, Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, and André Masson.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud)

My thoughts:
After looking into Artaud, and from what I previously know, I believe that he wanted to focus on hard hitting taboo subjects that would effect the audience. Especially doing them in a way in which they do not feel safe as they often do in a conventional theatre piece where there is still a divided between the actors and audience. This theory I feel helps the audience to have a stronger emotional and physical reaction to what they're witnessing and from this I think Artaud wanted to highlight how society is becoming complacent towards the issues in the world.
I also enjoy that he likes to look beyond reality, focusing on imagination and dreams, because it allows me as an actor to explore themes and ideas that I wouldn't normally within naturalism, as well as being able to use my body and voice in unusual ways. I find it refreshing not to conform to conventions.

I also believe that he wanted actors to work completely naturally, getting them to push themselves to their physical limits as what he refers to as "cost of the actor". Consequently I agree with this method because as an actor I find it helps me to push myself, often discovering new/different ways to move and react and knowing how far I can take them. For me this then helps what else I perform because I will have explored the extremes of what I wish to do and then can hone in and refine what I've discovered to suit the work.