The performance of arts communicates different messages to the audience through the fusion of dance, song, gestures, music, and speech. The actors translate experiences drawn from imagined or real events to the listeners. The theater is depicted as a place where performers can present the stories or songs live on stage. Antonin Artaud, James Morgan, and Julia Kristeva evaluate the harsh and frightening aspects of the arts that awaken people senses and hearts. This essay provides a depiction of horror and cruelty in theater from the perspectives of Artaud, Morgan, and Kristeva.
Atraud and Morgan notice the devastating fact that the concept behind theater appears to be lost. The performers have chosen to limit themselves to act as puppets that do not attract the intimacy and emotions of the audience. Most individuals have given up going to theaters for a chance to access the violent satisfactions provided by movies and circuses that do not provide false pretenses (Artaud and Morgan, 75). People are driven by the want and desire to see things that are beyond their imaginations; hence, they rush for the things that make their blood boil.
The theatre needs to tap the element of cruelty to capture the minds and hearts of the audience. With the upper hand of providing live performances, it can draw more listeners compared to movies. The strict constrictions that arose from the demeanor and misfortunes of psychological theater make people unaccustomed to the immediate and violent action that the theaters should possess. The movies assassinate our shadows through the use of machines that can capture our senses (Artaud and Morgan, 76).
For more than a decade, films have kept individuals in an ineffectual torpor that dulls their faculties. There is thus a dire need to ensure that the theaters are not left behind by the events of the catastrophic and agonizing period. Artaud and Morgan identify that all actions are directed from cruelty. The idea should push the limits of the theaters to greater heights so that they can renew themselves. The live performances have the capability to present crime in a theatrical manner that is more powerful that real life (Artaud and Morgan, 77).
Kristeva also emphasizes on the transformation of the art scene in an era that warrants artists to capture the people thoughts and hearts. The traditional setting only allowed directors to focus on the vague aspects of love and drama. The writer says that great monstrosities arise from cooking damn tricks that go beyond the realm of religious, political, and moral foundations. The fictional power of horror has a tremendous effect on the contemporary society. Kristeva draws on the concept of abjection that underlines the aspect of horror (Kristeva, 209).
Abjection entails the state of feeling cast out. The term explores a post-structuralism period that disturbs cultural concepts and conventional identity. Abjection provides a sense of social security that limits the arts from being far removed from media. The concept prevents the display of horror to capture the deepest anguish, hatred, and logic buried in the people’s thoughts. Cruelty and suffering in films and theater will provide the greatest demystifying authority that human beings have ever seen (Kristeva, 210).
Conclusively, literature should not stick to its comfort zone only addressing the traditional aspects of life that do not portray any creativity or interesting elements. The articles emphasize the need to draw upon the unique and different conditions that are buried deep within the minds of people. Life is not filled with only the good things. It possesses a high level of cruelty and fascinating factors that the contemporary society is developing a rising interest to witness from the artists.
Works Cited
Artaud, Antonin and Morgan, James. The Theatre and Cruelty. The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 2, No. 3. (May, 1958), pp. 75-77.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of horror. Vol. 98. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
