The Grand Guignol
Thursday, August 10, 2006
If there's an artist who might understand how to capture the Israeli-Lebanon war it's French dramatist Antonin Artaud, known for his Theater of Cruelty, a company producing highly visual, wildly murderous stories, sometimes known as Grand Guignols. Dramas that were spectacularly bloody and horrific. Artaud's work was rooted in the following ideas: most human beings are incapable of understanding the violence that drives us, but once we see it externalized, we can finally process it, then act with compassion and grace. Artaud viewed his Grand Guignols as a spiritual effort to bring the most horrific of our psychic fears to... Read more →