Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-259) and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- Section I -- The Theatre and Its Double -- Interpreting Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty -- Section II -- Elizabethan Social History: Doubles of the Theatre -- Theatre and Plague: The Doubly Potent Spectacles of Early Modern Culture -- Bear-Baiting and the Theatre of Cruelty -- Section III -- The Sources of Dramatic Cruelty -- Thyestean Savagery: Seneca, the Renaissance, and the Theatre of Cruelty -- Artaud and the `Elizabethans': Revenge Tragedy as Inspiration for a Theatre of Cruelty -- Section IV -- The Theatre of Cruelty in Performance -- Artaud's Les Cenci -- After Artaud: Peter Brook and The Theatre of Cruelty Season -- Conclusion
Summary:
This book examines the influence of the early modern period on Antonin Artaud{u2019}s seminal work The Theatre and Its Double, arguing that Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and their early modern context are an integral part of the Theatre of Cruelty and essential to its very understanding. The chapters draw links between the early modern theatrical obsession with plague and regeneration, and how it is mirrored in Artaud{u2019}s concept of cruelty in the theatre. As a discussion of the influence of Shakespeare and his contemporaries on Artaud, and the reciprocal influence of Artaud on contemporary interpretations of early modern drama, this book is an original addition to both the fields of early modern theatre studies and modern drama.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.