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CREATION OF CRUELTY
exorcism that is designed to turn our demons against us in a process of purifi¬
cation.’° Brustein interprets this as the liberation of our feelings formerly sup¬
pressed by social structure, and, as he states, the projection of these ideas on
stage generates catharsis, thus extinguishing the violence within us. Artaud’s
goal is nothing but the harmless drainage of repressions: “a theater which
presents itself first of all as an exceptional power of redirection,” that is, the
elimination of emotions and instincts that would, in different circumstances,
take a more dangerous form.” The result of the process is a kind of cleansing
— which takes place in the purgatory of “Artaud’s catharsis.” Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, in this sense, can be seen as a mirror image of the defining
mechanism in the Theater of Cruelty, first liberating demons (Act I: Fun and
Games and Act II: Walpurgisnacht) and then destroying (Act III: The Exor¬
cism) demons and violent tendencies, which results in the individual shaking
off self-destructive energies.
RITUALISM IN THE THEATER OF CRUELTY
In light of the evaluation thus far, the concept of the ritual in Artaud’s meta¬
physical theater should be looked at more closely in order to outline the con¬
cept’s definition, so that we can see the applicability and relevance of Artaud’s
visions to the play itself.
In his essay Les Rites de passage, Max Gluckman highlights the turmoil in
the terminology around the concept’’ and sees the solution in the creation of
a definition based on the findings of previous authors, but one that also goes
beyond the sum of its parts. As he declares, “Ritual is distinguished by the
fact that it is referred to ‘mystical notions’, which are patterns of thoughts
that attribute to phenomena supra-sensible qualities which, or part of which,
are not derived from observation or cannot be logically inferred from it, and
which they do not possess.”
In Artaud’s essays, of course, we cannot find such a definition of ritual, since
his writings are characterized by a vision derivative of poetic images, as Jan
Kott finds, the Theater of Cruelty created a need for pure icons, liturgy, and rite
within a magical theater, but Artaud himself did not give a definite answer on
how this metaphysical iconography and rituality appears in actual fact.' It is
10 Artaud: On the Balinese Theater, in Ibid., 60.
Artaud: No More Masterpieces, in Ibid., 83.
2 Brustein: Ibid., 167-169.
Max Gluckman: Les Rites de passage, in Max Gluckman (ed.): Essays on The Ritual of Social
Relations, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1962, 20-22.
14 Tbid., 22.
15 Jan Kott: The Icon and the Absurd, The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. XIV, Autumn (1969), 20.
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