2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

extent to which the creative philosophies concerned were fully formed, and then whether or not they reflected the principles of the Surrealist movement.

As a movement, Surrealism did firmly neglect the theatre. In 1964, theatre academic Ruby Cohn said with regards to Surrealism’s impact on the theatre that “Although poetry and painting were rocked to their foundations by the Surrealist explosion of the imagination, the theatre of the time was virtually untouched” (Cohn, 1964). The productions which were staged by the Surrealists were generally short, light-hearted, improvised shows, and even these functioned more as a creative exercise than as an attempt to create any meaningful theatrical work. The reasons for the distinct lack of Surrealist theatrical output is a matter of some academic contention. The overarching fact in this discussion is that Andre Breton, the man who authored the manifestoes of the Surrealism, was quite ambivalent towards the theatre. This ambivalence was largely due to his affinity for Marxism, and a perceived incompatibility between theatre and automatism. Irrespective of the reasons why, it remains the case that from within the Surrealist movement theatrical practice was a difficult task (Breton, 1962). It is perhaps for this reason that the greatest marks of Surrealist influence in the theatre came from outside the movement. An example of this is the practice of Artaud and Roger Vitrac in the Alfred Jarry Theatre. Phillip Auslander makes the observation that: “Despite the fact that two of the founders of the Théâtre Alfred Jarry had been rejected by Surrealism…their statements of intention come close to being manifestoes for a surrealist theatre” (Auslander, 1980, p. 357). They call for the freedom afforded to painting, music and poetry to be afforded to theatre. The question here becomes whether or not Surrealist Theatre can be called as such

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