News: "Artaud Marat" Comes to FRIGID 2020

Photo by James Ewan
The 2020 FRIGID Festival is now underway, with performances at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks in the East Village. In our coverage of this annual showcase for storytellers, solo shows, and short works, we will also be highlighting some of the productions on offer. Next up is Artaud Marat.

Where: The Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street, First Floor
New York, NY 10003

When: Fri, Feb 21 @ 6:50 PM
Thu, Feb 27 @ 10:30 PM
Sat, Feb 29 @ 3:20 PM
Wed, Mar 4 @ 8:50 PM
Sat, Mar 7 @ 1:40 PM

What: In playwright/director/production designer Roi Escudero's Artaud Marat. Mardi Gras is happening outside, and the audience is brought inside Antonin Artaud's mind, where the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real manifest themselves.

In the final period of Artaud's life, he is living in an abandoned pavilion in a park convalescence clinic at Ivry-sur-Seine, surrounded by 406 school children's notebooks. The pages are covered with drawings and cutting-edge text - "a body without organs" - and the paper is scarred with strokes of piercing knife-blade incisions. Artaud's radio play To Have Done with the Judgment of God has been banned. Jacques the poet, masked as "el Diablo," brings laudanum to Artaud. A flashback transports Artaud to his mother's womb. There he decides to be reborn with a purpose, to free his existence from the pain of the world and its violent indifference. Artaud (Ioan Ardelean) has a retrospection of his life with the support of his imaginary inmates, his favorite Greek God, the bon vivant Pan, and two of the characters of his movies: the monk Jean Massieu and the vehement Marat. Artaud’s madness. Madame Nebunie La Folie (Roi Escudero) and the asylum guest, Mademoiselle Raison d'être (Victoria Ric) and her manifestations: Truth, Violence, Passion, Desire, and Soul are part of Artaud's state of mind. Artaud and his imaginary inmates are under the care of The Caretaker, The Ghost of Dr. Ferdière (Valentin Ewan), who knows from experience that nothing is more terrifying than reality.

The artists "chose Artaud’s visionary genius and brilliant madness as a way to denounce the hypocrisies of society. Tolstoy said that 'the most important thing in life and art is to
tell the truth.' We consider Artaud’s truth to be important and relevant to our present time, where the emotional and physical 'cruelty' of terror is everywhere, disguised behind the powers of 'good' and 'evil.'"

Artaud Marat was created by award-winning conceptual performance artist Roi Escudero with the collaboration of Ioan Ardelean and Valentin Ewan. The mise en scène combines performance-art, visual theatre, movement, sound poetry, music and film. An original multimedia narrative interweaves footage from Artaud’s movies and archival footage, with sound, documents, and pictures from Artaud’s life. Artaud, adored and respected all over the world by many generations, represents the many artists carelessly thrown aside by society, who despite their suffering with mental issues, became immortal through their wonderful work.

Tickets: $15 for the general public. Seniors and Students $10

Website

Keep checking back here throughout February for more FRIGID Festival news and reviews.

FRIGID 2020 Reviews on Thinking Theater NYC
Blockbuster Guy
Cetology
Laser Comedy Show
Mother Leeds
A Southern Fairytale

Other FRIGID listings on Thinking Theater NYC
The 500 List
Artisanal Intelligence
Beneath the Bikini
Cemetery Golf
Closed Circuit
Delirium
Finding Fellini
Jaxx & Lolo: A Friendship Story
Magnetic Dragons
Nancy Drewinsky and the Search for the Missing Letter
A Southern Fairytale
The Stands
Story Time with Joey Rinaldi
This Feeling

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