Biography
Antonin Artaud was a French actor, playwright, poet and theatre director. He was born Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud on 4 September 1896 in Marseille and died on 4 March 1948 in Ivry-sur-Seine.
Artaud appeared in several silent films in the 1920s and 1930s. He played Jean Massieu in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Jean-Paul Marat in Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927). He also wrote the screenplay for The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928).
He is known for developing the concept of the Theatre of Cruelty and for his theoretical writings, including The Theatre and Its Double (1938).
