Antonin Artaud had his first mental breakdown at the age of 16 and, from there on out,

spent much of his life in and out of asylums. Diagnosed with incurable paranoid delirium,
Artaud suffered from hallucinations, glossolalia, and bouts of violent rage. And his
treatment probably did about as much harm as it did good. He was prescribed laudanum,
which gave him a lifelong addiction to opiates. He endured some truly horrific procedures
like electric shock treatment along with the highly dubious insulin therapy, which put him
in a coma for a while.

In spite of this, Artaud proved to be a hugely influential theorist and playwright, famous for
coining the term, Theater of Cruelty. His performances were designed to assault the
senses and sensibilities of the audience and awaken them to the base realities of life sex,
torture, murder and bodily fluids. Artaud wanted to break down the boundary between
actor and audience and create an event that was ecstatic, uncontained and even dangerous.
His ideas revolutionized the stage. As the late great Susan Sontag once wrote, no one who
works in the theater now is untouched by the impact of Artauds specific ideas.
But generally speaking, his ideas about theater were more popular than his actual
productions. One of his most famous plays, first staged in 1935, was Les Cenci, about a
father who rapes his daughter and then gets brutally killed by his daughters hired thugs.
The play was a flop when it debuted, running for a mere 17 performances. Even Sontag
conceded that Les Cenci was not a very good play.
Artauds last work was an audio piece called To Have Done With The Judgment Of
God (Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu), and it proved to be equally unpopular, at
least with some very important people. Commissioned by Ferdinand Pouey, head of the
dramatic and literary broadcasts for French Radio in 1947, the work was written by Artaud
after he spent the better part of WWII interned in an asylum where he endured the worst of
his treatment. The piece is as raw and emotionally naked as you might expect an
anguished rant against society. A raving screed filled with scatological imagery, screams,
nonsense words, anti-American invectives and anti-Catholic pronouncements.
The piece (above) was slated to air on January 2, 1948 but station director
VladimirPorch yanked it at the last moment. Apparently, he wasnt terribly fond of the
copious references to poop and semen nor the anti-American vitriol. Porchs rejection
caused a cause clbre among Parisian intellectuals. Ren Clair, Jean Cocteau and Paul
luard among others loudly protested the decision, and Pouey even resigned from his job in
protest, but to no avail. It never aired. Artaud, who reportedly took the rejection very
personally, died a month later. You can listen to the broadcast above. And, in case your
French isnt up to snuff, you can still appreciate its theatrical elements, maybe while
reading an English translation of the radio play script here.
If you cant get enough of Artauds final work, you can watch this staged version ofTo Have
Done With the Judgment of God below starring Billy Barnum and John Voigt (no, not
Angelina Jolies father, the avant-garde musician).
Via WFMU
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Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared
in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him
at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veeptopus, featuring one new drawing of a vice
president with an octopus on his head daily.