Cruelty and Affirmation in the Postmodem Theater: Antonin Artaud and Hanoch Levin

Abstract

The absence of a chapter on theater in several major books on postmodernism suggest that drama's place in the debate regarding the relations between modernism and postmodernism remains open. This debate, which centers on the question of whether postmodernism represents a complete break with modernism, or is merely a radicalized form of modernist trends, has apparently been taciturn with respect to the theater. And in the relatively few instances where theater is discussed, the tendency is to reassess the canon of modernist drama in light of postmodern theory, rather than to focus on new postmodern dramatic works. This situation implies that theater either has not produced major contemporary playwrights to match the fertility and diversity of modernism (Stanislavsky, Strindberg, Pirandello, Brecht, Artaud, Genet, Beckett, Ionesco, Dürrenmatt, and many more), or that we have failed to recognize within modernist theater the advent of postmodernism.