Initial Ideas

I found Artaud’s ‘The Nerve Meter’ to be a very confusing and dark piece of literature, on the first account of reading it I did not know much about Antonin Artaud’s life, I thought it could be Artaud having some sort of mental breakdown, and he is explaining to the reader, through powerful language devices.  What he feels and thinks during this moment.  A word that seems to be repeated is “abyss.”  From this I derived the idea that perhaps he is not having a breakdown, but a realisation of his insignificance to the universe.  I thought this idea had some substance to it so I began looking closely at some lines that I thought proved this, “This crust of words” this almost sounds like he is speaking about all the different things that humans create to make life make more sense, and in this moment Artaud is realising the true unimportance of human life.

Shortly after my first reading I researched a bit more about Artaud, and discovered that he was an opium addict.  I quickly realised that this dark piece of work could have been written on the come down of this drug, as it would have most likely made him view the world in a more negative way.  I knew that this poem would be great fun to work on, especially if we were being given the ability to break free from naturalism, and let a lot more of the stranger side of acting out.

Although I still wasn't sure quite how we would create and perform our piece.