Surrealism+5+Surrealism+&+Theatre


 * Surrealism & Theatre**

As mentioned throughout this wiki, Surrealists usually had a hard time working with one another in coherence. This led to many conflicts and one that I found funny was that which involved Jean Cocteau and Andre Breton, a founding member of Surrealism. What entailed was that Cocteau was a Surrealist writer and whenever his play would premiere, Breton would always try to attend. Breton was not attending to cheer Cocteau on, rather he was there to heckle him. Yes, he was there to make Cocteau's show seem like junk compared to other works in Surrealism. In an article by Misek, he states that, " Despite numerous overtures towards Dada and Surrealism in the early 1920s, Cocteau remained on the fringes of these two movements. A major factor in this was André Breton's irrational hatred of him. For many years, Breton would attend Cocteau's openings just for the chance to heckle his enemy"

Photos from Wedding on the Eiffel Tower by Jean Cocteau

I found this confrontation to fit in with our theme of what is going on with Surrealism and how no one could work together. They all had similar ideas but nothing would get done because they couldn't get along. Just look back up at Les Six from the music section. They couldn't work together.

Another thing to look at is Antonin Artaud. Just look at the Absurdism page and you'll understand what I mean. Artaud was also part of something not as Surrealistic and that was the creation of the idea of Theatre of Cruelty. Taken from Wikipedia,"Artaud believed that the Theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, therefore he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance." Even though Artaud was a founding member of Surrealism with Breton, he had his own view of what Theatre really is. Artaud wanted to put the audience at the edge of their seats and have them think about what they are seeing. He didn't want them to go see it and then forget about it once they walk out of the theatre. Artaud wanted them to walk away talking about what they saw through violence, sexual actions, or anything similar.

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