Surrealism in the Theatre

Any discussion of Surrealism in the theatre is to a large extent hypothetical, a discussion of what might have been had surrealist theory ever been successfully wed to theatrical practice. The surrealist movement in France, from its inception in 1924 until the Second World War, presented only seventeen theatrical productions.' Since most of these ran a single evening and none more than three, Surrealism produced no more than thirty evenings of theatre in the course of a decade and a half. Indeed, only two names can be associated with a serious effort at the creation of a surrealist theatre: Roger Vitrac and Antonin Artaud, who together founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry (named for the iconoclastic French writer). Vitrac, who had been with the movement from its beginnings, met Artaud in 1924 when the latter joined the Surrealists. The two men were on sufficiently friendly terms to spend the summer of 1925 together, returning from a holiday to discover that Vitrac had been excommunicated from Surrealism by Andre Breton. Artaud was excluded later on in the year.2

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