•    Developed in the 20s by Antonin Artaud
•    Reality = people drowning in society. They need to return to their PRIMAL SELVES.
•    Branched off of surrealism.
•    Audience shouldn’t feel safe or separated
•    Theatre should be CRUEL – break off scab of society
•    Total Theatre: theatre should SURROUND spectators in the performance space
•    Harsh lights, loud noises – feeling of unsafeness
•    Jet of Blood – play by Artaud
•    The Theatre and its Double – theatrical theory by Artaud

•    Given the term “absurdist” by Martin Esslin
•    Out-of-whack; alienated from all sense
•    Abstract setting and story/situation
•    Little/no link to specific reality
•    Common references, but they no longer have significance/power
o    Old jokes, worn out routines
o    Going through the motions
•    Distrust of language
o    Fear of banality
o    Simple communication is impossible
•    Circular structure
•    Situation  = theme
•    Funny and sad at once

•    No universal guarantees. No access to “Truth”
•    Existence precedes essence – choose to live – to live is the bravest thing
•    Playwrights who used existentialist themes and REALISTIC conventions:
o    Albert Camus (Caligula)
o    John-Paul Sartre (No Exit)
•    Playwrights who used existentialist themes and UNREALISTIC conventions:
o    Eugene Ionesco (Bald Soprano, Rhinoceros) – communication doesn’t work
o    Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) – life after apocalypse of meaning
o    Jean Genet (The Maids, The Balcony) – reality of fantasy
o    Harold Pinter (The Homecoming) – dark pauses/interruptions in reality
o    Edward Albee (The Sandbox, Three Tall Women) – corruption and lies sustain life

•    Post-WWII trend in art, literature, ideas
•    Incredulity toward metanarratives (stories about how the world is)
•    “Truth” doesn’t exist, or if it does it is inaccessible
o    Truth is relative on grand scales
o    Truth is still compelling on local/small scales
•    Representation changes what you’re representing
o    Performance: re-presenting, imitating (mimesis)
o    Performative: an act that changes/creates reality (“I declare you guilty”)
o    Simulacrum: a representation that replaces reality (gangsters watch the Godfather for ideas, Jersey Shore creates a new fashion style)
•    Focus on creating, not discovering, truths
•    Anxieties about “original/real” and “copied/fake”

•    Erwin Piscator and Bertold Brecht
•    Reality contains injustice and presents it as “just the way things are,” natural
o    Theatre should question ideology
o    Theatre should call given-ness of status quo into question
•    Agit-prop (agitation propaganda). Uses nonrealistic techniques to directly address political issues, alter audience’s attitude/behavior
•    Piscator staged political plays (Good Soldier Schweik)
•    Brecht began as expressionist, got with Marxism

•    Richard Schechner
•    6 Axioms
o    Continuum of pure/art and impure/life
o    All space is used for performance AND audience
o    May be in transformed/found space
o    Focus is flexible and variable
o    Each production element speaks its own language
o    Written/spoken text is not essential to performance

•    US-style democratic capitalism becomes global norm
•    Neither all-good nor all-bad
•    Mixes global and local (“glocal”)
•    Can inspire fear/anxiety/violent backlash

•    Aesthetic events that use performance elements
•    Visual art in motion
•    In 60s, 70s:
o    In streets, museums; not theatres
o    Focus on process rather than product
o    Focus on body/living bodies in space
o    Lasts only as long as it lasts
o    Challenges artist/audience distinction
o    Highlights/critiques conventions of spectatorship
o    Social/political commentary
o    Often: installations, or interactive space-based setups

•    Attitude combining two levels of awareness
o    Literal: pastiche. Recreation, imitation, paying homage
o    Parody
•    Can’t tell if it’s pastiche or parody
•    Look Around You - BBC

•    AKA Art Theatre. 1910s.
•    Interest in art beyond entertainment
•    Focus: to free productions from large-scale, commercial theatre
•    Jane Addams Hull House
•    Provincetown Players (1915)

•    By Jerry Grotowski
•    A form of theatre stripped of extraneous elements (excessive lighting/sets/sound, grand costumes, etc.)
•    Towards a Poor Theatre by J. Grotowski, theorerical work

•    Theatre for social good
•    Not necessarily political or activist-based
•    Educational Theatre (TIE – Theatre in Education)
•    In sub-literate communities (AIDS education dramas in Africa)
•    For elementary education, using theatre to learn math, science, life lessons (Viola Spolin is a practitioner)