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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Of whose performance does Artaud write in his second note of "Two Notes"?
(a) Buster Keaton.
(b) Charlie Chaplin.
(c) The Marx Brothers.
(d) Jean-Louis Barrault.

2. 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.

3. The _____ apportions the human breath into six principal arcana.
(a) Medical journal.
(b) Cabala.
(c) Bible.
(d) Hindu priest.

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

5. Artaud writes in his Second Manifesto that he plans to "renounce the theatrical superstition of the text and the _______ of the writer."
(a) Dictatorship.
(b) Leadership.
(c) Worship.
(d) Homage.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who appears with his men like giants alongside their tiny vessels in Act 1 of Artaud's proposed production?

2. Artaud writes, "Cruelty is above all lucid, a kind of rigid control and submission to ______."

3. To what does Artaud compare the ability of the theater's "magical means of art and speech to be exercised organically and altogether"?

4. "What voluntary breathing provokes is a spontaneous reappearance" of what?

5. To whom does the author write his third letter from "Letters on Cruelty"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Discuss Artaud's feelings about the cinema as he describes them in "The Theater of Cruelty."

2. What is Artaud's subject in his first note from "Two Notes"?

3. Describe the importance and role of the actor in Artaud's Theater of Cruelty, as he describes in the First Manifesto.

4. What must the actor control in order to relate emotions he wants to convey?

5. Discuss the stage as described by Artaud in his First Manifesto.

6. How does Artaud describe what "cruelty" is not referring to in his letters?

7. What are the differences the author notes between the athlete and the actor?

8. What movie does Artaud use in comparison to his main subject in the first note of "Two Notes"? What does he write of American filmmakers?

9. What does Artaud write of in his third letter of "Letters on Language," which follows the publication of his Manifesto?

10. In Artaud's "Letters on Language," he insists that the task of "mise en scène" must not be subordinated to spoken or written words as if this task was simply an accessory to theater. What does this mean?

(see the answer keys)

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