In April 1933, Anais Nin was invited to attend a lecture at the Sorbonne by Antonin Artaud on the subject of "The Theatre of the Plague":
Is he trying to remind us that it was during the Plague that so many marvelous works of art and theatre came to be, because, whipped by the fear of death, man seeks immortality, or to escape, or to surpass himself? But then, imperceptibly almost, he let go of the thread we were following and began to act out dying by plague. No one quite knew when it began...His face was contorted with anguish...His eyes dilated, his muscles became cramped, his fingers stretched...He made one feel the parched and burning throat, the pains, the fever, the fire in the guts. He was in agony. He was screaming. He was delirious. He was enacting his own death, his own crucifixion. At first people gasped. And then they began to laugh. Everyone was laughing! They hissed. Then one by one, they began to leave, noisily, talking, protesting. They banged the door as they left...But Artaud went on, until the last gasp...Then when the hall had emptied of all but his small group of friends, he walked straight up to me and kissed my hand. Artaud and I walked out in a fine mist....He was hurt, wounded, baffled by the jeering. He spat out his anger. "They always want to hear about; they want to hear an objective conference on "The Theatre and the Plague", and I want to give them the experience itself. The plague itself, so they will be terrified, and awaken. I want to awaken them. They do not realise they are dead. Their death is total, like deafness, blindness. This is agony I portrayed. Mine, yes and everyone who is alive...I feel sometimes that I am not writing, but describing the struggles with writing, the struggles of birth."
-Anais Nin, Journals, Volume 1, (1966).
Recent Comments