View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Artaud writes that to "restore [theater] to its original direction, to reinstate it in its religious and metaphysical aspect, is to reconcile it with ______."
(a) The civilization.
(b) The religious.
(c) The universe.
(d) The gods.

2. Theater must do what in order to reconstruct itself on a layer of its own virtual reality?
(a) Permit language.
(b) Imbue poetry.
(c) Destroy everything.
(d) Create magic.

3. Artaud compares totemism to what in the Preface?
(a) A mask.
(b) A god.
(c) A disaster.
(d) An actor.

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

5. 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) Transcient.
(b) Virtual.
(c) Subliminal.
(d) Stagnant.

6. Artaud states that in the Oriental theater, forms assume and extend their "sense and their significations on all possible levels; or, if you will, they set up ______ not on a single level, but on every level of the mind at once."
(a) Words.
(b) Music.
(c) Vibrations.
(d) Gestures.

7. What is proposed by the author as meant to shake up the foundations of civilization and culture as a whole?
(a) Theater of cruelty.
(b) Theater of meaning.
(c) Theater of shadows.
(d) Theater of gesture.

8. What does Artaud say serves as a copy, or double, of a life that does not exist?
(a) Alchemy.
(b) Art.
(c) Theater.
(d) Poetry.

9. Artaud comments that anything obsessive may be considered what?
(a) Red.
(b) Black.
(c) White.
(d) Green.

10. Artaud believes that theater should be the art of creating a higher meaning that cannot be what?
(a) Vilified.
(b) Repeated.
(c) Abandoned.
(d) Glorified.

11. In the Preface, Artaud writes of his belief that "no matter how loudly we clamor for magic in our lives, we are really _____ of pursuing an existence entirely under its influence and sign."
(a) Incapable.
(b) Unwilling.
(c) Afraid.
(d) Justified.

12. Artaud says that the actors of the Balinese theater appear to be as animated what?
(a) Gods.
(b) Emotions.
(c) Hyroglyphs.
(d) Poems.

13. 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) Transcendental.
(d) Ungodly.

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

15. Where does the theater of cruelty place the spectator?
(a) In the minds of the gods.
(b) At the edge of the stage.
(c) At a distance.
(d) In the center of the spectacle.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the Balinese theater, all sounds are linked to what?

2. Artaud says that the reason the public is not interested in "higher" art and in theater in particular, is because people do not react to what?

3. The author says that the problem at the heart of Occidental theater is that western art and culture systematically confuse art with what?

4. Artaud writes that true theater arises out of an organized what?

5. The author writes of the Balinese theater that "the sense of a new _________ based upon signs and no longer upon words, is liberated."

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 520 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample