Surrealist Theater
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ScribdTranslationsSurrealist Poetics
The "irrationalist" attitude of the Dada movement led to an attempt for greater
scope and thus surrealism emerges. André Breton, one of its references, had
contacted with the doctrines of Freud, founder of psychoanalysis and author of 'The
"The Interpretation of Dreams" (1901), and understood that the written word flows so quickly
how thought and that daydreaming and automatic verbal associations could
to be methods of artistic creation.
In Breton's words in his 1924 manifesto, Surrealism is pure automatism.
psychic by which an attempt is made to express, verbally or in any other way, the
real functioning of thought in the absence of any control exercised by reason
aside from all aesthetic or moral concerns.
Surrealism proposes a theory of the unconscious and the irrational as a means to
change life, society, art, and man through revolution. It is not a
movement with a unit of style, but rather a series of investigations by individual artists,
each one with a unique style.
The artistic productions of the surrealist movement would encompass a great diversity of
forms of expression will be their fields of experimentation: literature, painting, the
sculpture, photography, cinema, and perhaps to a lesser extent, theater.
Characteristics of surrealism
Surrealism was born in several countries as a literary movement, but it ended up invading
other arts: sculpture, the emerging cinema, and above all, painting.
Everything that exceeds logic and the unconscious is accepted. It is considered that the truth is
behind the real world.
Dreams (and their interpretation), myths, visions, the marvelous are accepted.
thus, through oneirism and fantasy, one could access that which remained
hidden.
Automatism, psychoanalysis, and witchcraft take on a predominant role.
At the same time, one renounces morality, conventions, and social protocols.
rulers for being considered as restricting the freedom that leads to that hidden truth.
The work of art becomes the medium for all that knowledge to surface.
unknown and gagged by bourgeois customs.
Surrealism is presented as revolutionary, as an aesthetic that, by placing it in
manifest the unknown, aims to blow up the established foundations of
society.
Therefore, it advocates for radical change. For this reason, several of its authors declared themselves
openly Marxist, leftist, or anarchist.
Surrealism in theater
Before André Breton's 'Surrealist Manifesto' (1925) was published, it was already
they presented dramatic works that fit that desire to search for the world
irrational, hidden and muzzled by the rational consciousness shaped by culture and the
social impositions. Historians have pointed out as predecessors of writing
surrealist drama the titles "Ubu roi" (King Ubú, 1896) by Alfred Jarry or "The Breasts of Tiresias
Tiresias (The Breasts of Tiresias, 1917) by Guillaume Apollinaire.
In the 1917 staging of 'The Breasts of Tiresias', both the set design and the
costume (managed by Serge Férat; Sergueï Nikolaïevitch Yastrebzov, painter and decorator
Russian), the text and the entire representation were based on an aesthetic of the absurd. The trend
to bring together in a single character the masses or groups with like-minded ideas and the fact of including
a presenter who previously narrated each scene, repeated himself in these performances
surrealists.
Other surrealist productions were: 'The Lovers of the Eiffel Tower' (1921) written and directed by
Jean Cocteau, where text, dance, and mime came together with surrealist painting as the backdrop;
"The Gas Heart" (1923), by the Dadaist Tristan Tzara, a complex parody of "nothingness" with
complex costumes designed by Sonia Delaunay.
The surrealist theater aimed to unleash images through words and actions.
strangely juxtaposed dreamlike elements. From there, the shows had, in their majority,
a predominance of the text over the dramatic action, not giving much attention to the design or
plastic composition of the scene. However, some contributions such as introducing
cinematic images in the shows can be considered as
significant within the scenic activity of the surrealists.
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