theatre of cruelty

British  

noun

1. a type of theatre advocated by Antonin Artaud in Le Théâtre et son double that seeks to communicate to its audience a sense of pain, suffering, and evil, using gesture, movement, sound, and symbolism rather than language

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Example Sentences

He was heavily influenced by Antonin Artaud's ideas for a Theatre of Cruelty, putting on a season of plays in London in 1964.

From BBC

The theatre of cruelty unfolding at the southern border last week was the purest distillation yet of what it means to be governed by a President with no moral center.

From The New Yorker

Sissy Spacek is the bullied teen with telekinetic powers in this parable of bullying and misogyny, which is also a brilliant satire of high school, particularly the prom as a theatre of cruelty and anxiety.

From The Guardian

The appointment of the latter led to the controversial Theatre of Cruelty season in 1964.

From BBC

From Craig’s original discourses on the “emotional depth” of the character to the declaration that he would rather “slash my wrists” than play Bond again, the cumulative effect has cast the process of Being James Bond as slightly more spiritually immersive than doing Theatre of Cruelty for a six-month run inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

From The Guardian