View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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) Cruelty.
(b) Freedom.
(c) The poetic state.
(d) A religious experience.

3. In "An Affective Athleticism," Artaud writes, "One must grant the actor a kind of affective musculature which corresponds to the physical localizations of ______."
(a) Sanity.
(b) Thought.
(c) Feelings.
(d) Breath.

4. Artaud claims that the psychological theater descended from whom?
(a) Zola.
(b) Jarry.
(c) Shakespeare.
(d) Racine.

5. "The soul can be physiologically reduced to a skein of" what, according to the author?
(a) Vibrations.
(b) Movement.
(c) Breath.
(d) Thoughts.

Short Answer Questions

1. In his first manifesto, the author writes "Every spectacle will contain a physical and ______ element, perceptible to all."

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

3. What does Artaud accuse the "current" theater of turning its public into?

4. What is the title of the second note Artaud writes in "Two Notes"?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. In Artaud's first letter in "Letters on Cruelty," who is he writing to and what is his principle subject?

2. Discuss the use of masks and accessories as described in the First Manifesto.

3. Describe how Artaud defines the images and movement of the "Theater of Cruelty" in his second manifesto.

4. To whom is Artaud's third letter written in "Letters on Cruelty"? What is the author's tone in this letter? Why?

5. What is Artaud's subject of his second note in "Two Notes"?

6. What is Artaud's approach to the audience in the theater of cruelty?

7. What physically must an actor learn to localize in his body?

8. Describe the events of the last two acts of "The Conquest of Mexico."

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

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 931 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample