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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Artaud compare actors of the "current" theater to in "The Theater and Cruelty"?
(a) Artisans.
(b) Circus freaks.
(c) Puppets.
(d) Religious leaders.

2. "What voluntary breathing provokes is a spontaneous reappearance" of what?
(a) Emotion.
(b) Death.
(c) Fear.
(d) Life.

3. Of the word "cruelty," Artaud writes in his letters that the word represents "irreversible and absolute" what?
(a) Inspiration.
(b) Rage.
(c) Determination.
(d) Loathing.

4. In his second letter of "Letters on Cruelty," Artaud refers to what as being in a sense of constant creation?
(a) Music.
(b) Art.
(c) Film.
(d) Theater.

5. In his last letter from "Letters on Language," Artaud says that in fact, the theater he is defining has to assume another _____ in order to function.
(a) Theme.
(b) Meaning.
(c) Definition.
(d) Civilization.

6. The author claims that actors in France no longer "know how to do anything but" what?
(a) Sing.
(b) Talk.
(c) Stand.
(d) Bore.

7. What is the title of the first act of Artaud's proposed production for the Theater of Cruelty?
(a) "Warning Signs."
(b) "Evil Awaits."
(c) "Final Ship."
(d) "Blast of Cannons."

8. "When the poetic spirit is exercised, it always leads toward a kind of boiling ______, an essential disintegration of the real by poetry."
(a) Redemption.
(b) Anarchy.
(c) Freedom.
(d) Dissimilation.

9. What is the "distinct poetic state of mind" which Artaud terms for the film he discusses in "Two Notes"?
(a) Absurdism.
(b) Realism.
(c) Comedy.
(d) Surrealism.

10. In "An Affective Athleticism," the author writes, "The actor is an athlete of the ____."
(a) Heart.
(b) Mind.
(c) Body.
(d) Soul.

11. According to the author, "Our long habit of seeking _____ has made us forget the idea of a serious theater."
(a) Ignorance.
(b) Diversion.
(c) Joy.
(d) Realism.

12. The first line of Artaud's Second Manifesto, states, "Admittedly or not, conscious or unconscious, _________, a transcendent experience of life, is what the public is fundamentally seeking through love, crime, drugs, war, or insurrection."
(a) Freedom.
(b) The poetic state.
(c) Cruelty.
(d) A religious experience.

13. In order to reinvent and modernize theater, it is necessary to get rid of what?
(a) Sacred texts.
(b) Proscenium staging.
(c) Actors.
(d) Directors.

14. Artaud writes, "At the point of deterioration which our sensibility has reached, it is certain that we need above all a theater that _________."
(a) Enrages us.
(b) Enables us.
(c) Wakes us up.
(d) Frightens us.

15. Artaud intends his theater to to seek in the what of tremendous masses?
(a) Clamoring.
(b) Agitation.
(c) Terror.
(d) Sensation.

Short Answer Questions

1. Of whose performance does Artaud write in his second note of "Two Notes"?

2. Writing of language in his first manifesto, Artaud states, "It is not a question of suppressing the spoken language, but of giving words approximately the importance they have ______."

3. What does Artaud assert is the principle concern of the actor physically?

4. Artaud claims that the public thinks first of all with its what?

5. Who, in addition to Shakespeare and Aeschylus does Artaud refer to as a great classicist in his "Letters on Language"?

(see the answer keys)

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