Theatre and Cruelty

I feel that the idea of theatre is still existent, but there are other forms of performance that seem to change what we think of as theatre. I found this article interesting in the fact that Artaud feels that we are too sensitive and theatre is that only thing we need to wake up from reality. It seems that this act of cruelty in theatre serves more of an eye opener. I feel that it's important to have something completely shocking and mind-blowing in order to gain attention to an idea. Theatre is something that is a display of a performance and it's important to fully think through on how do you want your audience to react. It's the same thing with any sort of performance and I agree that it's important to think about the emotion of your audience. I feel that Artaud wanted to make that an important point and used cruelty to enhance emotion.