A Lecture by Monsieur Artaud

In this seriously demented experimental piece ten actors play a remarkable variety of characters, including Gide, Camus, Brecht, Napoleon, a Surrealist Banana, Toulouse-Lautrec, Anais Nin, a homicidal doll, nuns, Hitler and many others. Antonin Artaud, near the end of his life, is invited to speak before the cream of the French artistic and intellectual community, but his increasingly incoherent groans and shrieks unfold into a surreal history of his life and struggles that is both moving and funny. The artist's nightmare given flesh and animal noises. Spooky and madcap. Dark, sad, and absurd. A play about the holiness of the theatre and the price one pays for it.

First produced at Indiana State University in 1982.