Hotties from History

 Hotty from History #29 - Antonin Artaud (September 4, 1896 – March 4, 1948)

It is hard to believe that such a pleasant and distinguished face belonged to a notorious madman who spent much of his life in asylums, directed people to poo on stage and died clutching a shoe.

• Antonin is perhaps best known for being a theatre practitioner but it is his writing which is truly spectacular. Reading it, you can see why people worried about his mental health. He did however have a perfectly good explanation for his insanity- “There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him.” What I love about Artaud is that he excuses himself of all his sins by describing the waking world as hell. He’s not so terribly far off. 

• Antonin was basically a drug addict. This in itself isn’t attractive but he did have a pretty sound reason to be so: he wasn’t exactly a fan of everyday waking life. I think he was talking about the escape that drugs allowed him when he said “So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.” Pretty sound reasoning there, Artaud. Not sure it would sit very well with angry and concerned parents in this modern age, but it would be worth a try.  

• His dramatic Manifesto, Theatre of Cruelty, was a complete flop when it was originally released. This happens to a lot of great things: Van Gogh’s art, Withnail and I, that strange contraption they called ‘the flying machine’… It’s hardly a hugely popular theatrical discipline now, but it is believed that Artaud was the first practitioner to have theatre performed in the round. Artaud was simply seeking to rid audiences of the repressive effects of civilization and to liberate their instinctual energy, by using screams, pulsating lights and groans…if his theatre was so exciting, I imagine he must have been pretty damn interesting in the sack.

• Artaud eventually died of cancer. In his life, he had not been obsessed by suicide, although he did say that “each conversation with a psychiatrist…made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat”. Oh, Artaud. He has an insight into literally everything one might want a hotty to know about. And, it would seem, Artaud did not have any particularly memorable love affairs: it is times like these that I wish I could go back in time and offer myself as a muse! Is that a little bit wrong? Probably. Oh well!

Tragedy on the stage is no longer enough for me, I shall bring it into my own life

• Antonin Artaud. Madman, genius, and basically, incredibly attractive.

-Georgia