“Comic Cruelty: Artaud and Jarry,” in Antonin Artaud and the Modern Theater, edited by Gene A. Plunka, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994, pp. 37-50.

In the following essay, Koos argues that Alfred Jarry strongly influenced Artaud's concept of comedy and of its importance to the theater of cruelty.

Our speaking on the theme of comedy will appear almost a libertine proceeding to one, while the other will think that the speaking of it seriously brings us into violent conflict with the subject.

—George Meredith, An Essay on Comedy

By providing us with the lovely illusion of human greatness, the tragic brings us consolation. The comic is crueler: it brutally reveals the meaninglessness of everything.

—Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel

In a characteristically outrageous moment in the classic Marx Brothers' film Monkey Business (1931), Groucho, being chased by the ship's captain, enters a cabin, interrupts an argument between a...