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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is proposed by the author as meant to shake up the foundations of civilization and culture as a whole?
(a) Theater of shadows.
(b) Theater of cruelty.
(c) Theater of meaning.
(d) Theater of gesture.

2. Artaud writes that Occidental theater is a theater of what?
(a) Ritual.
(b) Dialogue.
(c) Imagery.
(d) Poetics.

3. Artaud writes, "Compared with the murderer's fury which exhausts itself, that of the ______ remains enclosed within a perfect circle."
(a) "Comedian."
(b) "Tragic actor."
(c) "Director."
(d) "Poet."

4. What is the mise en scene composed of?
(a) Psychological awareness.
(b) Everything around production.
(c) Acting.
(d) Poetry.

5. Of the performers of the Balinese theater, Artaud writes, "They are like huge _____ full of lines and segments drawn to connect them with an unknown natural perspective of which they seem nothing more than a, kind of detached geometry."
(a) Men.
(b) Monsters.
(c) Gods.
(d) Insects.

Short Answer Questions

1. Artaud maintains that since classics texts--what we generally call masterpieces--were made in the past, they are only good for what?

2. In the Balinese theater, Artaud writes "The drama does not develop as a conflict of feelings but as a conflict of" what?

3. Alchemy uses what to reflect physical operations at a spiritual level?

4. In what town does Artaud tell the story of the plague being foreseen by the viceroy?

5. Describing the Balinese theater, Artaud writes, "And there is in the truly terrifying look of their devil (probably Tibetan) a striking similarity to the look of a certain ______ in our own remembrance."

Short Essay Questions

1. What must occur for the theater to be restored, according to the author?

2. What does "gold" represent in Artaud's analogy of "The Alchemical Theater"?

3. How does Artaud describe the gestures of the Balinese Theater? How are they "understandable?"

4. What commonality does Artaud assert between Alchemy and the theater?

5. What does the author claim is the reasoning behind why the public is turning away from the "higher" arts in "No More Masterpieces"?

6. What does Artaud write of civilization and culture in his Preface?

7. What is the "perversion" of the theater of the west, according to the author?

8. Who does Artaud hold responsible for much of the "masterpieces" he wants to demolish? Why?

9. How does Artaud relate theater to the painting from "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene"?

10. What does Artaud write about the message of the painting he describes in "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene"?

(see the answer keys)

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