Drama Criticism | Artaud, Antonin - Maurice M. Labelle (essay date March 1973)

Maurice M. Labelle (essay date March 1973)

“Artaud's Use of Language, Sound, and Tone,” in Modern Drama, Vol. 15, No. 4, March, 1973, pp. 383-90.

[In the following essay, Labelle discusses Artaud's use of sound, tone, pitch, and volume in his attempt to undermine conventional language and traditional theater.]

“Oh, for a language to write drama in,” Eugene O'Neill wrote in 1929. “I'm so strait-jacketed by writing in terms of talk! But where to find that language?”¹ His cry of frustration reiterated the feelings of one of his French contemporaries, Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). Although O'Neill failed to answer his question, Artaud, in his plays and poems, undertook a long series of experiments in language, sound, and tone in an attempt to develop new means of communication.

The Spurt of Blood (Le Jet de sang) (1925), a play which was the highpoint of his early period (1924-1931), demonstrates the...

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