Dracula 5

Antonin Artaud 

Whilst reading The Theatre And It's Double, by Antonin Artaud, I came upon a section where he discusses a painting by the Middle Age artist Lucas van Den Leyden called Lot and his Daughters and how it relates to language on the stage.

He explains how his first glance at the painting "affects the mind with an almost thunderous visual harmony", and that it raises an awareness of great importance within the painting. This shows how just looking at something can raise such an emotional reaction and awareness without the use of language. He then goes on to explore this and question whether language on the stage is even necessary to convey thoughts and messages. 

He claims that, in Western theatre as we know it [at the time of him writing the book] everything that we can't express through speech is left in the background, and that it is only considered "theatre" if there is dialogue. He states that the stage is a physical space asking to be filled and to be given it's own language to speak, and that this language is intended for the senses. According to Artaud there is a poetry of the senses, just as there is written and spoken poetry of dialogue, and that spoken language is unable to properly express the thoughts and emotions that the actor is trying to convey, so we must instead use the language of the senses and physicality. He also says that, when working with an audience and trying to reach them through theatre, instead of trying to reach the mind you should try to reach the senses first and let the intellectual levels come about later.

This language he talks of is made up of everything that can be created on the stage that addresses the senses and emotions, as opposed to addressing the mind which is what language does. This actually makes perfect sense because language, whilst being beautiful and expansive and incredibly useful, primarily affects the mind. You hear something and you think "Oh yes, lovely phrasing, wonderful metaphor, I totally agree with you", however it doesn't really hit your gut and your heart and your soul the way other things can. For example, hearing someone say "Her baby was crying and wailing, it was a heartbreaking sound" doesn't make your gut twist and flop the same way the actual, simple sound of a baby's crying does. 

However, I don't quite understand how we can use this concept of less talking in the play of Dracula as it is a scripted play where we'll be abiding by the script. I imagine we'll instead make use of the "poetry of the senses" concept by incorporating ritual, movement and other noises such as breathing and non linguistic voice.