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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Artaud maintains that since classics texts--what we generally call masterpieces--were made in the past, they are only good for what?
(a) The future.
(b) The museum.
(c) The past.
(d) The stage.

2. In what year was the original Le Theatre et son Double published?
(a) 1938.
(b) 1945.
(c) 1919.
(d) 1920.

3. In Artaud's metaphor for the plague, where did the ship end up docking?
(a) Sicily.
(b) Paris.
(c) Rome.
(d) Marseilles.

4. Where was the ship from that came to dock on the island of Artaud's metaphor?
(a) Africa.
(b) Istanbul.
(c) Beirut.
(d) Egypt.

5. This is a perversion of theater to represent psychological and social conflicts and daily life, simply because the object of theater is not psychological but rather plastic and essentially what?
(a) Spiritual.
(b) Material.
(c) Ungodly.
(d) Transcendental.

6. Artaud writes in the Preface that "A civilized man judges and is judged according to his" what?
(a) Poetry.
(b) Thoughts.
(c) Letters.
(d) Behavior.

7. The biggest obstacle standing in the way of a complete and fundamental renewal of the art of theater is the respect and admiration that we have for the what?
(a) Classic texts.
(b) Music.
(c) Directors.
(d) Actors.

8. Artaud claims that while Occidental theater is focused on the psychological, Oriental theater focuses on what?
(a) The music.
(b) The metaphysical.
(c) The spiritual.
(d) The realistic.

9. Artaud writes, "We are told that the Mysteries of ______ confined themselves to the mise en scene of a certain number of moral truths."
(a) Orpheus.
(b) Sappho.
(c) Eleusis.
(d) Odysseus.

10. What animal does the author say has a mysterious affinity with the plague?
(a) Cats.
(b) Swine.
(c) Cows.
(d) Dogs.

11. Why is the "Theater of Cruelty" considered cruel by Artaud?
(a) It aims to redeem mankind.
(b) Its basis is that of pain.
(c) It resurrects tortured gods.
(d) It attacks the foundation of culture.

12. Writing of Balinese performances, Artaud notes that "Everything is thus regulated and impersonal; not a movement of the muscles, not the rolling of an eye but seem to belong to a kind of reflective ________ which controls everything and by means of which everything happens."
(a) Mechanization.
(b) Science.
(c) Artistry.
(d) Mathematics.

13. The author writes of the Balinese theater that "the sense of a new _________ based upon signs and no longer upon words, is liberated."
(a) Physical language.
(b) Religion.
(c) Obscurity.
(d) Code.

14. What sense has contemporary theater lost, according to Artaud?
(a) Beauty and language.
(b) Aesthetic.
(c) Psychological.
(d) Religious and mystic.

15. Artaud writes of the comparison of theater to alchemy, "It is that alchemy and the theater are so to speak _____ arts, and do not carry their end--or their reality within themselves."
(a) Virtual.
(b) Stagnant.
(c) Subliminal.
(d) Transcient.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does the theater of cruelty place the spectator?

2. What does the author refer to having subjugated Plato?

3. Which form of the theater does Artaud admire in contrast to Occidental forms?

4. What does Artaud say diminishes the value of the theater?

5. What does Artaud contend must be seen as as the burning projection of all the objective consequences of "a gesture, word, sound, music, and their combinations"?

(see the answer keys)

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