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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What "theater is based upon age-old traditions which have preserved intact the secrets of using gestures, intonations, and harmonies in relation to the senses"?

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

3. In "Oriental and Occidental Theater," the author writes, "if we restrict theater to what happens between cues, we have still not managed to separate it from the idea of a ________."

4. Artaud comments that anything obsessive may be considered what?

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"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the principle limitation of the current theater, as described by the author in "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene"?

2. What is the "reality" of the Balinese theater, according to Artaud?

3. What commonality does Artaud assert between Alchemy and the theater?

4. How does Artaud relate theater to the painting from "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene"?

5. What are the sources of the essays in "The Balinese Theater"?

6. How does Artaud draw the comparison between the theater and a plague?

7. What replaces the playwright in the Balinese Theater? How is this figure described?

8. What is the "perversion" of the theater of the west, according to the author?

9. What must occur for the theater to be restored, according to the author?

10. In "Oriental and Occidental Theater," how does Artaud describe the downfall of the West?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the concept of "archetypes." What is an archetype? How does Artaud envision their use in the theater?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss and describe the Theater of Cruelty as the author presents it in his First Manifesto. What are the essential elements? How does it differ from the contemporary theater of Artaud's time?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the term "Mise en Scene." What does this term mean? How does Artaud describe it? Of what importance is it to The Theater of Cruelty?

(see the answer keys)

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