This play by Tim Dalgleish tells Artaud's story from his early years of aspiration, when he wished to part of the establishment, through to his final years as a suffering, iconoclastic outsider. It is a powerful rendition of one of theatre's greatest and most influential practitioners. (Contains strong language). Antonin Artaud was a film star, poet, playwright, director and theorist writing some of the most influential manifestoes on the art of theatre ever written. In his early years he starred in films by Abel Gance and Theodor Dreyer two of early cinema's greatest directors. His screenplay for The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) was a strong influence on Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel. For several years he ran the Alfred Jarry Theatre in Paris with Roger Vitrac, producing and directing original plays by writers such as Paul Claudel and August Strindberg. His life was wracked with much personal suffering and mental anguish. He is best remembered for his work The Theatre and Its Double (1938) which outlines his theory for his so called Theatre of Cruelty. Just after the Second World War in 1946 Antonin Artaud was finally released from eight years of confinement in various asylums. The intellectual and artistic community of Paris, such figures as Picasso, Duchamp, Sartre and Gide had helped raised funds to aid his release. Not long before a new collection of his essays and letters about Mexico Au pays des Tarahumaras had been published. A benefit performance and gala was held for him at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt. He himself even performed solo at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier (though physically a wreck, nearly toothless and ravaged by years of drug use). This renaissance of his fortunes was welcome but short lived, he died just outside Paris at Ivry in March 1948.
About the Author: Tim Dalgleish was born in England in 1966. He began his working life as a stage hand for The Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre Company's production of Hamlet with Robert Lindsay. His first piece of journalism was published in 1985, followed a year later, with the performance of his first play a musical Stride. At 26 he published The Guerilla Philosopher a study of the prolific author Colin Wilson. He studied in London, New York and Madrid and followed this by teaching philosophy, literature, history and acting. His second book Lifting it Off the Page (1995) was an oral history of The Open University for whom he was both an MA student and employee. He wrote regularly for History of Britain Magazine and previous incarnations include having worked in bookshops, a museum and a bookies. His theatre work has seen him work with Physical Theatre companies such as RAT, Volcano, and Bare Bones. More traditional acting work includes parts such as Ernest in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Arthur Birling in Priestley's An Inspector Calls and Yang Sun in Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan. He was Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Open Stages showcase in Stratford-upon-Avon and Macbeth in the Open Theatre Group's production of Macbeth. He toured nationally for with Voices of the Holocaust Theatre Company in an adaptation of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and Fragile Fire, a play about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which he co-wrote. His film work as a director includes numerous filmed versions of plays including Happy Days, Krapp's Last Tape, Death and the Maiden, Marat/Sade and Macbeth. In 2013 he directed his first documentary Beat about Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl, which was selected for the Flux Film Festival. As an actor he was in Imagine a short film by Carl Mason which received Special Mention at the Marbella International Film Festival 2015. He was in the feature film Fractured Minds and regularly records audiobooks such as Playing Macbeth: An Actors Journey into the Role his own account of acting one of Shakespeare's greatest roles and which has received especially enthusiastic reviews. At present he lives with his wife and daughters in Olney, Buckinghamshire.