quality:corruption, linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:reformatting, structural:expansion, stylistic:tone
The Theatre and its Double (1938)

In 1938, Artaud published The Theatre and Its Double, one of his most important texts. In it, he proposed

a theatre that was in effect a return to magic and ritual and he sought to create a new theatrical language of totem and gesture – a language of space devoid of dialogue that would appeal to all the senses.

The Theatre of Cruelty he theorized in the text abandoned the formal proscenium arch and dominance of the playwright, which he considered "a hindrance to the magic of genuine ritual", in favor of "violent physical images", which would "crush and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator", who would be "seized by the theatre as by a whirlwind of higher forces".