Cruel Vibrations: Sounding Out Antonin Artaud’s Production of Les Cenci1

This article examines the sonic elements of Antonin Artaudʹs 1935 production of Les Cenci, Artaudʹs infamous attempt to realize his proposed ʹtheatre of crueltyʹ. The aim is to qualify the critical opinion that Artaud was a failed theatre practitioner by analysing the conceptual complexity and potential effectiveness of the sound design for this production. Artaud utilized new sonic technologies and an aesthetic arguably derived in part from Balinese gamelan music to affect audience members on a physiological level, prefiguring the vibrational force and ultrasonic ambitions of modern sonic warfare. This analysis engages a range of primary and secondary materials, including an extant recording of music and sound effects used^for the production, and is situated with reference to an estimated acoustic ʹhorizon of expectationsʹ of Artaudʹs audiences and to neuroscientific conceptions of how the brain processes auditory input.