² Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Theo-Drama, Theological Dramatic Theory: Volume 1, Prolegomena, trans. Harrison, G. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 300Google Scholar, n.9. (Further references to the volumes of the Theo-Drama will be in the text in brackets as TD I, II, III, IV and V).

³ ibid.

⁴ Artaud's work, and perhaps especially this concept, has been influential in terms of theatre in the work of directors such as Peter Brook and Jerry Grotowski. As an intellectual figure, and it is also important to see that Artaud can be read as a literary and aesthetic theorist as well as a philosopher, he has had a profound effect on thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida, Kristeva and Susan Sontag.

⁵ TD I, p. 130.

⁶ I have explored the contribution of Artaud to theology in a general way in ‘Drama/Film & Postmodernity’ in Jones, G. (ed), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004)Google Scholar, and in a more specific way (relating to biblical hermeneutics and Barth) in ‘We Are Tied to These Texts: Scripture in the work of Karl Barth’ in Court, J. (ed), Biblical Interpretation: the Meaning of Scripture – Past & Present (London & New York: Continuum/T & T Clark imprint, 2003)Google Scholar.

⁷ Artaud, Antonin, Collected Works: Volume One, trans. Corti, V. (London: John Calder, 1968), p. 28Google Scholar. From here on all references to the Collected Works of Artaud (all translated by Corti and published by John Calder) will be referred to in the text by CW1, CW2 and so forth.

⁸ These words of Artaud were actually made as a response to Riviere's request to publish the letters Artaud had been sending him, but I think they can also be seen to encapsulate something of Artaud's thought about writing and poetry in general. It is also the case that these early letters of Artaud are seen by many as some of the most important literary works of the early surrealism. In the end Artaud did agree to Riviere's request and the letters were published in the journal.

⁹ Although Artaud was involved with Breton and the surrealist movement from 1923 until he was expelled in 1926, after the expulsion there was huge animosity between Artaud and the movement. Breton and his close companions published a pamphlet called In the Open which directly attacked and insulted Artaud describing him as the ‘enemy of art’. Artaud responded with an equally intense attack on the surrealist movement, though Artaud did not attack any member personally. Artaud's response was called, In the Dark or the Surrealist Bluff (CW 1, pp. 191–198) and is a powerful piece of writing which at times has almost Shakespearian qualities if seen as a dramatic monologue.

¹⁰ Artaud, A., The Theatre and its Double, trans Corti, V. (London: Calder, 1999 edition), p. 64Google Scholar. The essays that comprise this key text of Artaud's can also be found in, Artaud, Antonin, Collected Works: Volume Four, trans Corti, V. (London: John Calder, 1974), pp. 1–110Google Scholar. This is a translation of, ‘Le Theatre et son Double’, in, Artaud, Antonin, Oevres Completes: Tome IV (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1964), pp. 11–171Google Scholar. For the essay in this key text I have used Corti's single volume translation, which is considered to be very reliable, though I have occasionally translated phrases myself (or adapted Corti's) where the English translation appears to lack the power and vitality of Artaud's and seems to understate what is being said. This does not happen very often, and on the whole the translations are acknowledged as excellent. References to the single volume will be in the text as ‘TAD’.

¹¹ Esslin, M., Antonin Artaud: The Man & His Work (London: John Calder, 1970), p. 76Google Scholar.

¹² Sontag, S., ‘Approaching Artaud’ in Under the Sign of Saturn (London: Vintage, 1996), pp. 23-4Google Scholar [whole essay on pp. 13–70]. This essay can also be found as the introduction to Sontag's edited collection of Artaud's writings, Antonin Artaud: selected writings, trans. Weaver, H. (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988) pp. xvii–lixGoogle Scholar).

As Sontag point out, this is not a new ambition in modernism, but what she further argues is that it may be that Artaud is the author who comes closes to achieving it ‘by the violent continuity of his discourse, by the extremity of his emotion, by the purity of his moral purpose, by the excruciating carnality of the account he gives of his mental life, by the genuineness and grandeur of the ordeal he endured in order to use language at all’ (p.24). What is potentially interesting here is to see, albeit metaphorically, Artaud's writing in a similar way to some of the Patristic Fathers. In, say, the Cappadocian Fathers and Athanasius, there is definitely the sense of the purity of moral purpose needed to do theology at all as well as the sense in which these theologians are trying to push language to its limits to do more than merely represent. Like Artaud's, the texts of the Fathers are often highly polemical works which are not designed to represent the truths of the Christian faith, but to present them to cause a response.

¹³ Esslin, op. cit., p. 84.

¹⁴ A. Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, p.64/Oeuvres Completes: Tome IV, p. 101. Indeed, the French for ‘to wake us up’, ‘qui nous reveille’ could also be translated to revive us. In this sense, we have the idea that the type of theatre that merely entertains almost causes a ‘death’ in us from which we need to be revived. This is a stronger sense of just being woken up from sleep. For Artaud, the problem of his contemporary theatre runs far deeper than it merely sends us to sleep.

¹⁵ Barber, S., Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs (London: Faber & Faber, 1994), p. 45Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Barber, op. cit., p. 46.

¹⁷ References to The Theatre and its Double will appear in the text in this way from now on. The first page number refers to the English translation (already noted) the second to the original French volume of the Complete Works (again, already noted).

¹⁸ The word “l'inntilit—” could also be translated as useless or unnecessary, thus, the sentence could also read: ‘this supremely anarchic, material painting seeming to establish their {i.e. words] uselessness/or that words are, at times, unnecessary.’

¹⁹ Sontag, op. cit., p. 34.

²⁰ Gassner, J. & Quinn, E., The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1970), p. 841Google Scholar.

²¹ Derrida, J., Writing & Difference, trans. Bass, A. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p.190Google Scholar.

²² As Artaud says: ‘There is no question of abolishing speech in theatre but of changing its intended purpose, especially to lessen its status, to view it as something other than a way of guiding human nature to external ends …’ (TAD, p. 53/pp.86-7).

²³ Artaud is actually referring to his planned production of Seneca's Atreus and Thyestes which he is going to call The Torment of Tantalus. Although Artaud is referring to a particular production his sentiments echo much of what he explores in his theatre of cruelty.

²⁴ There are some clear resonances with Gadamer's use of the relationship of the ancient Greek to his/her myths in the development of his concept of ‘understanding as play’, in that the point of the myth was not the extent to which the story was believed, rather it was the role the myth had in shaping people and their understanding of the world. Moreover, there is a sense here in which Artaud is very close to a more Aristotelian view of tragedy and the cathartic effect it should have on those who see the play, through its evocation of pity and fear. Where Artaud would dramatically differ with Aristotle is that for the latter drama is always imitation, whereas for Artaud the theatre (as art) does not represent or imitate life, it is life, or it is the double of life itself.

²⁵ Nichols, A., No Bloodless Myth: A Guide Through Balthasar's Dramatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), p. 23Google Scholar.

²⁶ Esslin, op. cit., p. 93.

²⁷ In order to achieve this aim, Artaud describes, in the First Manifesto on the Theatre of Cruelty, how the theatrical event must be staged. He says that, ‘we intend to do away with the stage and auditorium, replacing them by a kind of single, undivided locale without any partitions of any kind and this will become the very scene of action. Direct contact will be established between the audience and the show, between actors and audience, from the very fact that the audience is seated in the centre of the action, is encircled and furrowed by it’ (TAD, p. 74/pp. 114–115).

²⁸ Nichols, op.cit., p. 39.

²⁹ I would suggest that to use drama in this way is a way of understanding the whole question of the relationship between time and eternity in Christology. This dramatic analogy is a way of understanding Christology as a ‘place where an attempt is made to conceive eternity and time in a positive relation, the one losing its fallenness through the saving presence of the other’ (Gunton, Colin, Yesterday & Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983, p. 120)Google Scholar.