Antonin Artaud, a 20th century playwright and theorist, envisioned a radical form of theater called the Theater of Cruelty. In this concept, human actors would not be the focus. At its core were the ideas of machines over actors, a focus on the senses, and a new perspective on the space of the stage and the audience.

Artaud recognized that human actors are limited by psychology and emotion. He proposed replacing them with machines or puppets capable of expressing elementary, raw, primal experiences beyond human limitations. In this way, he sought to focus on the senses. His goal was to directly assault the audience's senses - sight, sound, touch - with overwhelming stimuli. The aim was to bypass intellectual understanding and evoke a state of catharsis, a cleansing of the emotions.

We must keep this in mind in order to try to understand the importance of visual perspective in Artaud's vision of the theater.

Perspective, in traditional theater, refers to the spatial arrangement of the stage, the horizontal line of the edge of the stage, the field opening out behind it, like a classical picture oriented toward a vanishing point. Each member of the audience thus views the performance from a kind of maximum distance, becoming the opposite of the vanishing point.  For Artaud, this perspective had to be fundamentally shattered in some way. Hence the term cruelty.

For him, there is no fixed point of view. In his theater, the audience wouldn't be passive observers in a fixed seating arrangement. The performance would surround them, blurring the boundaries between performer and spectator.

Another action to intertwine performance and audience in such a way that it should no longer be possible to distinguish between the two is sensory overload: Lights, sounds, and movement would be used not to create a realistic illusion, but to create a disorienting, visceral experience.

Think of it this way: Traditional theater offers a clear perspective, like a well-framed picture. Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty would be like being immersed in a chaotic, sensory explosion where perspective becomes irrelevant and the audience is directly involved in the raw emotions on display. In other words, the theater becomes that part of reality from which we try to escape, trying to establish a definitive order by any means necessary.

Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty isn't about literal physical cruelty, but rather a radical approach to theater aimed at shaking the audience out of complacency and clinging to the illusion of a final order. He saw traditional Western theater, with its reliance on psychological realism and text, as stagnant, and believed it failed to engage the audience on a deeper, primal level.

The Theater of Cruelty aimed to overwhelm the audience's senses - sight, sound, and possibly even touch - with powerful images, sounds, and movement. It wasn't about entertainment, but a kind of sensory bombardment to evoke raw emotion and a state of catharsis.

Gone would be the separation between stage and audience. Performances could take place in a central space, with the audience surrounded by the action. The goal was to create a more direct, visceral connection between performer and audience.

Language, while not entirely absent, wouldn't be the primary driver. Movement, gesture, and primal sounds would become the central means of communication, bypassing intellectual comprehension and tapping into the subconscious.

Artaud even questioned the need for human actors. He envisioned their possible replacement by machines or puppets capable of expressing raw, primal experiences beyond human limitations. Ultimately, Artaud's Theater of Cruelty wasn't about inflicting pain, but about a kind of emotional liberation. He believed that theater could act as a powerful force to purge social repression and awaken audiences to a deeper, more fundamental human experience.

Artaud's idea of replacing actors with machines or puppets in his Theatre of Cruelty stemmed, as mentioned above, from his critique of human limitations and his desired effect on the audience. He felt that human actors were limited, that they could only portray a range based on experience and interpretation, the flat level of emotion that was accepted by the bourgeoisie, but were not capable of expressing those kinds of experiences that are only given by subjective living out of basic needs. He envisioned puppets or machines unburdened by these limitations. They could be designed to express raw, primal emotions and experiences with a kind of unadulterated intensity that human actors might struggle to achieve.

By using non-human performers, Artaud wanted to move away from portraying specific characters and focus on broader human experiences or archetypes. Machines or puppets could embody concepts such as anger, fear, or suffering in a more abstract, universal way.

One of the most important aspects for him was the focus on form and movement. Decoupling emotion from a human actor would allow for a purer focus on physical form and movement. Gestures and actions could be meticulously crafted to evoke a specific emotional response, unclouded by the actor's own interpretations.

It's important to note that Artaud's ideas were theoretical and open to interpretation. Some believe that he didn't intend to remove actors entirely, but rather to have them move in a more puppet-like manner, emphasizing physicality over psychology.

Unfortunately, Artaud was never able to fully realize his vision for the Theatre of Cruelty.  Artaud struggled with mental illness throughout his life, which severely limited his ability to direct large-scale theatrical productions.

His ideas were radical and expensive to realize. He didn't have the financial backing or access to the technology necessary to create the kind of immersive, sensory experiences he envisioned.

The theatrical institutions of his day weren't receptive to his radical ideas. His focus on raw emotion and audience participation didn't sit well with the more polished, text-driven productions of the day. Even today, it is almost impossible to find an audience that will actively engage with such theater.

However, Artaud did stage some productions that incorporated elements of his theories. These included:

"The Spurt of Blood" (1926): This play used distorted sets, unsettling sound effects, and a focus on physical movement to create a dreamlike, disturbing atmosphere.

Although he couldn't fully realize his vision, Artaud's ideas had a lasting impact on the theater.  His emphasis on physicality, audience participation, and the exploration of primal emotions continues to inspire experimental theater and performance in the arts. Similarly, his idea of a set that is not tied to a specific location but can be found anywhere, or his way of creating a score using words as well as drawings or collages, remains an important resource for poets, artists, and designers today.