Put the audience in action/Let the slaughtered take a bow
As drama was never my academic or literary interest, my knowledge of Antonin Artaud is exceedingly limited, and chiefly only as the subject of an excellent song by Bauhaus. So when WFMU posted this little snippet, I was blown away by the crazy.
Doing what any good netfiend does in a case of suddenly piqued interest, I went and checked out his Wikipedia entry, only to discover that crazy was a lifelong hobby of Artaud’s. My favorite bit? Acquiring a walking stick in Paris that he was convinced once belonged to Saint Patrick, Lucifer, and Jesus Christ. So he tried to return it to it’s rightful place in Ireland, only to be confounded by his utter lack of English language skills.
It warms the subcockle region of my Erisian heart that someone this totally gonzo bonkers was a defining voice in theater theory.