NOFAPARTAUD vs Hero

If you ever speak tales about some crazy guy who was loyal to murphy's law, be sure, the name that memory will suddenly bring upon my mind, will be Antonin Artaud.
In parallel, if you ever speak of those who defied laws of gravity, realism, contrast between colors and thought that the possibility of you getting hit by and arrow is over 1 million arrows are shot at you is extremely slim, I shall call forth Hero.

ARTAUD VS HERO

Artaud was against realism. He saw "fiatah" (theatre with a british accent) as mental poetry.
Indeed many may disagree with him, as he was a drug addict, and was locked up about 10 years of his 50 year long life. And for many, this make his argument invalid. Although most of the things he said were creepy or really vague... he did have a point.

He talks about life as theatre's double. And I will dare to take his idea beyond and talk about it made me think myself (activation theory... not)
In Balinese theatre everyone single detail means something, everything in stage, for little as it can be, its meaning grows it its maximum, making it important on stage. Every gesture can represent a state of mind that can't de described with words... the language of signs is much more power. Surrealism. Contrast. Exxageraton. Perfection of life.

Metaphysics, mental poetry. It's all in your mind. He thought that sounds from crying to laughing could occur with a elusive transition in one's mind. Exagerating gestures and signs on stage could create emotions that words could not describe. A language that all cultures could understand.

In the movie hero, we see some of this exxageration, surrealist and gesture techniques.
I can say - maybe wrongly - hero is a movie that would had pleased artaud. The moments in which gesture described the whole mood without any words, the contrast in colors, the exageration of special effects to imitate what legendary swordmen were supposed to do.

But moving into antonin-topic, he explained how theatre is the double of life. Life can therefore be the double of theatre. In real life, although we don't pay much attention to it, each single small movement and thing mean something big. I go far from him - but still i dare - and say that real life could be explained and analysed the same way as he saw theatre. Making the theatre (double of life) exactly the same. Realism, but according to dreams. Surrealist plays can be as realistic and dreams can get. It gets confusing for me, so i will finish it before it gets worse.

Trying to understand and analyze the ideas of some Artaud is no easy task.

He wasn't right. No one in theatre can be right. Its just a trend.
It is really difficult to compare Artaud to different traditions because he destroyed one of the most important elements of theatre before him... the dialogue. And turned plays into mental, metaphysical poetry. His theatre of cruelty dismembered the mind of the actor to the edge were he could work. To ever single detail.

People didn't like his work back then. Why did he suddenly turned into such an important influence for theatre? If gestures -according to artaud- couln not be explained in words, how do you create them on stage. How can his mental poetry understand human mind without language? How can all actors understand the same? For me... His plays were well designed chaos. Chaos that language could not understand, but just through emotions. And that was the beauty of his theatre. I have no questions, just doubts. I can't understand Artaud.
But should theatre represent, in a higher perfection, life or should theatre represent what life is, but bigger? How can you create a stage of signs that can't be described into language and go beyond metaphysics to cause emotions on the audience that can't be understood?

I will need to think more about it and maybe blog again during the week about this...