'Doctors often describe schizophrenia as a type of psychosis. This means the person may not always be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.' 

This proves that schizophrenia is an illness that effects the brain severely and is psychotic and only a psychiatrist can diagnose it.  There is no cure for schizophrenia as of yet, the most probable reason being because the causes of the illness are not fully understood. Up to 3 in 10 people with the illness nay have a lasting recovery, and 1 in 5 show significant improvements.  

However, saying this we did get a few good rehearsals in, rehearsing through our lines and monologues. We also spent a long time picking sound effects that fitted our genre of theatre of cruelty, by Antonin Artaud. This also took time out of rehearsal time, so reflecting back we think that we should do that in our own time and to split up the jobs rather than doing every single together.  

We decided to get all of the hard stuff out of the way first, for example jumping off the stage. As my character I had to jump of the stage to represent suicide so I wanted to get that done early on in rehearsal so I wasn’t worried when it came to doing it on the day.  

 

 

Theatre of cruelty was a project for experimental theatre by the practitioner Antonin Artaud. ​Artaud believed that modern civilization had transformed humans into sick and repressed beings. ​A lot of Artaud’s theatre ideas, techniques are difficult to understand and his manifestos ‘Theatre and its double’ are not recognized as bed time reading. 
Theatre of cruelty is used to shock the senses of the audience, sometimes using violent images, sounds, and smells to affect the emotions. ​ 

This is reinforced by Dunning, N (2016) 

 

‘Artaud-acting-techniques often require the use of noises, grunts, screams – the dialogue is often minimal and requires that the actor looks inside to his or her own primal emotions in order to create the role.’ 

 

This discusses the aspects and techniques that Artaud used with in his theatre and how they had effects om the audience.  Artaud experimented with the relationships between the audience and the actors, usually putting the audience in the centre, having the performance surrounding them. ​ 

This is also supported by Dunning, N (2016)  

 

‘The aim of an Artaud performance is to cause a real experience of discomfort and confusion in the audience that causes them to think and become involved as participants, not onlookers’ 

 

Who talks about how Artaud wanted to create an experience for the audience to make it feel somewhat real for them. Therefore, trapping the audience into the drama. Artaud saw both the world around him and theatre as a whole needed a change. There was an appeal to the subconscious, freeing the audience from their negativity. His Theatre could not communicate using spoken language which is a primary tool of rational thought. Lighting used in theatre of cruelty is usually a combination of flooded light and pinpointed, more directed light, for example things such as spot lights.   

AntoninArtaudwas born on 4th September 1896 in Marseilles, France.​ 

He was widely recognized as one of the largest figures of twentieth century theatre and the European avant-garde. Artaud moved to Paris to start his career as a writer, which was against the wishes of his father, but instead he discovered he had a talent for avant-garde theatre.  When he was 27 he sent some of his poems to the journal La Novelle Revue Francaise, but they were rejected. However, the editor, Jacques Riviere, wrote a letter back to him, wanting to understand him, and a relationship developed between them through letters.  Artaud was heavily influenced by surrealism, at one point in his life he was a member of the surrealist movement. He was a playwright, poet, actor, theatre director and essay writer​. He spent most of his older life in mental asylums, due to his depression. He died on 4th March 1948