theater of cruelty

noun

1. a form of surrealist theater originated by Antonin Artaud and emphasizing the cruelty of human existence by portraying sadistic acts and intense suffering.

Word History and Origins

Origin of theater of cruelty¹

1950–55; translation of French théâtre de la cruauté

Example Sentences

They are everyday people who have fallen on the wrong side of the “friends and enemies” distinction that animates Trumpism and its theater of cruelty.

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They are everyday people who have fallen on the wrong side of the “friends and enemies” distinction that animates Trumpism and its theater of cruelty.

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Noem is a key player in the theater of cruelty, but she is not the only one, and the unparalleled star is of course President Trump.

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The words seemed to echo from a shadowy past, where justice was twisted into a theater of cruelty, where the gallows were strung with piano wire on meat hooks.

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In the 1930s, an entire movement — the Theater of Cruelty — was formulated, in the words of its founder, Antonin Artaud, to “subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world.”

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