Alchemy is just such a Wheel, a circular process of transformation. The classic dicta – solve et coagula and fac fixum volatile et volatile fixum – describe a chemical circle. Solid resolved into spirit, spirit coagulated into solid.1
To embark upon this opus is to recognize the need for a dramatic shift in consciousness. The practice of ‘mental’, philosophical or spiritual alchemy is founded on the premise that if we transform personally, then the world will change – an ideal that many of us are working towards. To truly want change is to acknowledge the need to see differently from usual often one-sided ways of thinking. Once we make the commitment to undertake the inner work demanded to explore the reality of the soul and spirit, we are confronted with the question of how we take action towards change, and what might be demanded of us, since letting go of what we know can present a terrifying challenge. This journey, a call to adventure and initiation into profound mysteries, is where we are presented with trials to test us so that we truly come to know and actualize ourselves. It is a process not dissimilar to what the mythologist Joseph Campbell called the ‘hero’s journey’ because it takes enormous courage to embark upon it. Jung tells us that embarking upon this journey is to listen to our inner voice: “The inner voice is the voice of a fuller life, of a wider more comprehensive consciousness. That is why, in mythology, the birth of the hero or the symbolic rebirth coincides with sunrise: the development of personality is synonymous with an increase of awareness. For the same reason most heroes are characterized by solar attributes, and the moment of birth of their great personalities is called illumination.”2
Age-old magical effects lie hidden in this symbol, for it is derived from the “protective circle” or “charmed circle,” whose magic has been preserved in countless folk customs. It has the obvious purpose of drawing a sulcus primigenius, a magical furrow around the centre, the temple or temenous (sacred precinct), of the innermost personality, in order to prevent an “outflowing” or to guard by apotropaic means against distracting influences from outside.4
Visualizing the elemental mandala can support us through this opus particularly when we are in the nigredo darkness where we are forced to question our identity. Because of its symbolic and magical power, visualizing a circle can assist us in learning to read the symbolic language of the unconscious that we are venturing into at this nigredo stage of the work. This will be elaborated upon in Imaginatio i. The elemental mandala provides us with a ‘map’ for our experimentation with the rotation of the elements where we work to bring order into the chaotic prima materia. It will also support differentiating conscious and unconscious elements that are an integral part of our own personal transformational work. At this early stage of the opus, we may be presented with a curious alchemical mystery called ‘the squaring of the circle’. According to Jung this alchemical axiom identifies the complete precept of the alchemical process and is the symbol for the whole alchemical opus: “Unity is represented by a circle and the four elements by a square. The production of one from four is the result of a process of distillation and sublimation which takes the so-called “circular” form: the distillate is subjected to sundry distillations so that the “soul” or “spirit” shall be extracted in its purest state.”5 This central axiom, known as Maria’s Axiom, stretches our thinking dimensionally. The reason it is called Maria’s Axiom is that it was brought to light by a gnostic woman alchemist who is believed to have lived around the third century called Maria Prophetissa. Jung tells us her tenet for the squaring of the circle is as follows: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.”6 This ‘riddle’ has occupied the minds of great scholars throughout the ages and will no doubt continue to do so. It is anticipated that
As Misha stood in the centre of his living room, he drew an imaginary circle around himself, explaining that the chart represented such a circle drawn around the actor. He asked me to imagine that all the various techniques mentioned on the chart – Atmosphere, Characterization, Qualities, etc. – were like light bulbs on the circle’s circumference. He said that when Inspiration “strikes,” all the light bulbs are instantly turned on, illuminated.7
Notably, a first introductory exercise of Chekhov’s Technique, is learning to establish our own imaginary centre in the body at the chest and heart level. This centre has powers not unlike the central point of a mandala. Jung tells us this signifies the totality of the Self and that the centre of the circle is the place of creative transformation.8 Chekhov’s introductory exercise can not only awaken the body as a sensing organism, but also serve as an objective central point from which all physical and psychological movement will consequently proceed. Chekhov instructs us: “Imagine a Centre in your chest from which living impulses are sent out to your arms, hands, legs, and feet. Start to move, imagining that the impulse to form the movement comes from this Centre.”9 He stresses that it is from this imaginary centre the actor can “radiate forth various kinds of energy.”10 Finding our own body centre from which to radiate, establishes a new form of consciousness in the body where movements emanating from this centre can psycho-physically and psycho-spiritually receive and direct imaginations, to include consolidating an embodied imagination of the elemental mandala.
For Chekhov’s actor it is the heart-centre that is the central place from which we primarily work. Having established the heart-centre we can then explore different placements for our characters depending upon their motivation. Centres can be found in varying parts of the body and so we can focus
Having incorporated our imaginary centre as a basis from which to work, we proceed to explore Chekhov’s Four Qualities of Movement exercises based on the alchemical four elements. The strengths gained from practicing these exercises can support us as we progress further through the opus since we can achieve a felt-sense of the elements. This means experimenting with the specific element and its movement at each stage of this work for instance, Imaginatio i (earth), ii (water), iii (air), iv (rubedo). In Imaginatio v, all four elements having been transmuted, coalesce into the quintessence or illuminated substance, where the elements are held dynamically in balance. The first of the Four Qualities of Movement, earth, is called Molding. The space around is molded with arms and hands in large and small movements, with a sense of resistance. Breathing becomes deeper and more labored due to the effort the movements demand. Chekhov’s instruction is as follows: “As before, make strong and broad movements with your whole body. But now say to yourself: “Like a sculptor, I mold the space surrounding me. In the air around me I leave forms which appear to be chiseled by the movements of my body”.”11 The exercise for the water element is called Floating. For this element move slowly as though moving through water: “In this exercise imagine the air around you as a surface of water which supports you and over which your movements lightly skim. Change tempos. Pause from time to time.”12 Next is the air quality that is called Flying: “Imagine your whole body flying through space … movements must merge into each other without becoming shapeless … A sensation of joyful lightness and easiness will permeate your entire body.”13 Chekhov calls the fire element, Radiating, and directs us to continue performing the broad, wide movements of previous exercises and then to stop still and radiate: “… continuously and in advance send the rays from your body into the space around you, in the direction of the movement you make, and after the movement is made.”14 Experimenting with these exercises will psycho-physically bring about an embodied sense of all four elements. At the
Even if you have already been introduced to the Four Qualities of Movement exercises previously, I suggest practicing them time and again so they work intensively on you bearing in mind they can support a deeper understanding of alchemistic principals of the elemental mandala and what it means to practice alchemy as an alchemical actor. Experiencing the progression of the elements – earth to water, air to fire, water to air, earth to fire, we glean insight into nature’s secrets since we are lead into an experiential relationship with the properties and qualities of earth, water, air and fire that build up our bodies, exist outside in nature and as soul qualities. Once we have an embodied appreciation of these elements, we can begin to further differentiate their qualities, in movement and in speech. In The Art of Speech, Langman elaborates Steiner’s indications as to how we can work with the sounds as living beings.15 Her section on ‘The Consonants and the Four elements’ reveals how the four elements – earth, water, air and fire can shape and inspire our speaking since the consonantal sounds are easily categorized into these elements. For instance: “A range of consonants behave like fire. Some create a strong sensation of heat or energy. Other’s onomatopoeically resemble sounds that we associate with fire’s activity. All are formed by the intensity with which the breath stream is directed against, and resisted by, the points of contact in the mouth.”16 Examples of fire sounds are f, z, s, v, h. Likewise we can speak in the qualities of air, water and earth since there are sounds that are made up of these elements such as r for the air, l for water, and b, d, g, k, m, n, p, t, for the earth. Voicing the sounds while practicing the Four Qualities of Movement exercises can lead to a more layered experience of the archetypal ‘beings’ behind the elements, and also the sounds that shape our speech organism, thereby deepening our connection to the logos.
According to Steiner, around the age of three years old, the developing ego is active in determining our self-identity and we say I. In this way we identify
For Artaud, the decisive part of the analogy is that theatre – and consciousness – can change. For not only does consciousness resemble a theatre but, as Artaud constructs it, theatre resembles consciousness, and therefore lends itself to being turned into a theatre-laboratory in which to conduct research in changing consciousness.20
A playful but nevertheless profound example of awakening consciousness is staged in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the surface the play is a comically light-hearted example of a journey into the other-worldly. Delving more deeply it serves as an entry into the alchemical imagination. The character Nick Bottom delightfully portrays the transmutative change the alchemical imagination can instigate. Bottom appears as an overly confident, delightfully ego-centric tradesman, or ‘mechanical’ strolling the woods to meet other tradesmen actors to rehearse a play that will be performed at the marriage of King Theseus and his bride to be Hippolyta, where they will join in a divine ‘marriage’ known in alchemy as the coniunctio, or union of opposites. Enjoying his heightened status as an actor, Bottom unwittingly crosses a threshold venturing into the fairy Queen Titania’s world. It is here he experiences magical and transformative events. Having found a suitable place in
Bottoms’ ‘translation’ through Titania’s love, is an example of the mysterious non-linear journey of the alchemical opus: Wandering into the forest, an allegory for the unconscious, where usual material ego-sustained signposts no longer apply and shadows, taking the forms of fairy beings, that can be seen as aspects of ourselves, challenge us to take notice of them. Experiences like these defy us to become conscious of this strange new archetypal world we encounter. However, before we can find our way out of the metaphorical forest and return in some way transformed to our mundane lives, we must attempt to make shadows conscious. Jungian writer Stanton Marlan suggests that such experiences can finally promote liberation, even though it can be deeply painful and frustrating. Describing the experience of transformation in a way that Artaud himself would applaud, Marlan tells us that this is an experience of psychological death. He notes: “… death is also the death of a materialist viewpoint, freeing us for imaginal and poetic life, a life beyond life, and a movement into psychological depth.”22 In the forest of the unconscious, we must make sense of our nigredo discombobulation by asking existential questions such as: “Why am I here?” Bottom does exactly this in his altered state as an ass when he confronts his fear: “Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard?” and “What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?”23 His questioning leads him to a certain degree of conscious
As previously mentioned, motivation for this opus is to imagine Artaud’s visionary ideas, to reveal more about what could constellate as alchemical theatre in the twenty-first century. Certainly since The Theater and Its Double was published in 1938, theatre practices have evolved significantly due to the impact of seminal modernist artists like Artaud, some of whose ideas have already made their way into twenty-first century theatre praxis. Sifting through Artaud’s manifesto is challenging due to the way he presents his radical ideas and so we don’t really get a complete picture of how alchemical theatre can become a path to training and performing. What we emphatically learn from Artaud however, is what alchemical theatre isn’t: “… [It] has nothing to do with the kind of realistic, social theatre which changes with each historical period and in which the ideas that animated the theatre at its origins can no longer be discerned except as caricatures of gestures, unrecognizable because their intention has changed so greatly.”25 What we also learn from Artaud is that key to his theatre is its Double. Moreover, to participate with this double calls for “particular training” that is alchemical, that is, metaphysical, imaginative and poetical, and that calls forth an encounter with the essential Self. Not only does his theatre involve working with its double, but it also demands cruelty since we must integrate changes by consciously living and integrating them! The directives in his doctrine or manifesto can seem overwhelming in their intensity and incompleteness. However, as we attempt to fathom his imaginations and the esoteric immensity of what lies behind his ideas, a pattern does begin to emerge to reveal how his theatre might come about in the most inspiring way.
What we learn from his manifesto, an important theme of his theatre that we will be explore in more detail later on, is ‘cruelty’. Contrary to the mundane use of the word, Artaud’s theatre exercises the sort of cruelty that will painfully arouse consciousness. This cruel theatre is one that can restore life and has to do with what he calls “archetypal primitive theatre” that is an “essential drama” to our being human and that can only be understood “poetically.”26 He informs us: “In a word, the theatre must become a sort of experimental demonstration of the profound unity of the concrete and the abstract,” a coming together of opposites.27 It would seem that to participate in alchemical theatre, we must
Consciousness is an overriding theme in Artaud’s theatre. He notes: “Perhaps it means that at the point where we are we have lost all touch with the true theater, since we confine it to the domain of what daily thought can reach, the familiar or unfamiliar domain of consciousness; – and if we address ourselves theatrically to the unconscious, it is merely to take from it what it has been able to collect (or conceal) of accessible everyday experience.”29 In alchemical practice, consciousness becomes the differentiating process in varying degrees, not unlike the degrees of heat emitted from a fire. This is essentially what the great work is about – analysis and synthesis, or dissolution and coagulation of consciousness, towards refinement and deeper knowing of Self. As we have learnt, for Artaud, consciousness is cruel because of the pain it puts us through actively or passively. We can either go out to find knowledge by doing, or as in some Eastern practices, sit in active passivity.30 Both are dynamic forms of consciousness calling for hard work that the alchemical actor can practice. In depth psychology becoming conscious means activating the unconscious that demands acts of will to make internal changes that are painful, in order to make known, what is not known. Since this magnum opus serves as an assemblage of imaginations, mercurially dancing with them, becoming familiar with them, digesting them, developing a ‘felt-sense’ for them, can fire us up to imagine how theatre alchemy can be performed. Within our theatre crucible or laboratory, our imaginations inspired by alchemical principals, will heat up our prima materia to undertake creative works, towards a new twenty-first century theatre practice, that can contribute to shaping our social future.
What emerges as an especial practice in the art of alchemical theatre and key to what Artaud foregrounds in his essays that will also be elaborated upon later in this work, is gesture. Artaud’s gesture has totemic powers (significantly, both Steiner and Chekhov also place gesture at the forefront of their techniques) and constitutes an embodied metaphysical grammar that could bypass the intellect, seen as the generator of materialistic thinking. In search of a new theatre language not bound to the written word and intellectual
In his essay ‘Alchemical Theater,’ Artaud proposes that theatre and alchemy are analogous since they both embody what he describes as the “mysterious identity of essence.” These particular words we will discover are vital to our understanding of what he meant by alchemical theatre since they have alchemical meaning, intimating that he had some knowledge of the metaphysics of alchemy and could envision how theatre and alchemy would work together.
That Artaud had metaphysical leanings is asserted by Sontag when she describes Artaud’s life-long ‘saturnine’ leaden metaphysical search for meaning in her essay Approaching Artaud taken from her aptly named book Under the Sign of Saturn, mentioned previously.40 Sontag reminds us that Saturn is the planet revered by alchemists for facilitating a (lead)en melancholic and philosophical temperament, or attitude, and that by promoting inner suffering (not unlike Artaud’s doctrine of cruelty), had the potential to wake up the unconscious and to open psychological (psychic) portals for alchemists to venture into ‘other worlds’ that were often more real to them than the mundane world. Sontag comments that from 1935, Artaud’s writings that were historically
Gnosticism, as an esoteric system of knowing truth through direct experience is central to alchemical practice. Advocating personal experience of the divine, Gnosticism is not only relevant to practicing alchemy, but to understanding Artaud’s doctrine and indeed his life. According to Artaud, a gnostic perspective is wholly important to alchemical theatre since it able to engage and redeem the whole human being – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Approaching Artaud’s work through an alchemic lens, it is interesting to see how gnostic leanings impact his vision, for instance, when he refers to good and evil since these two forces establish the dualistic conceptual pillars of gnostic understanding. The alchemical prima materia seen as chaotic material demanded emancipation through refinement by reconciling opposites through the process of solve et coagula. In The Theater and Its Double, we are continually reminded by Artaud that with evolutionary shifts, and the quickening alienation of human consciousness from its divine source, humanity was plunging deeper into a material consciousness, and driven towards ego-centric individualism, that he deplored. Where individualism focuses on egocentricity and disconnection from the divine, it is more likely to be open to the ‘forces of evil’. In contrast, Jung’s notion of Individuation, influenced by Gnosticism, is the pursuit to become a whole person with a living connection to the divine. Artaud recounts how theatre up until around the time of the Renaissance, provided a stage where human beings could ritualistically immerse themselves in characters enacting life’s dilemmas inspired by the Gods. He contends this shift in consciousness from ritually performed theatre to a more individual experience of theatre, became evident in William Shakespeare’s plays indicating perhaps, that Shakespeare or the authors of plays under the assumed name of
Artaud made his disdain for emergent ‘realist’ forms of theatre quite clear – the seeds of which he believed were evident in Shakespeare’s plays, noting: “If, in Shakespeare, a man is sometimes preoccupied with what transcends him, it is always in order to determine the ultimate consequences of this preoccupation within him, i.e., psychology.”47 In a contradictory way, he berates Shakespeare for promoting the psychologizing of theatre but also applauds him as a representative of the ‘enlightened’ age of thinking for his depth of insight into the human condition. It is perhaps not so ironic then that Artaud blamed Shakespeare the playwright for theatres decline into “purely descriptive and narrative-theatre storytelling psychology” because “the public is no longer shown anything but the mirror of itself.”48 Artaud’s perturbation acknowledges the widening schism between material and divine worlds since the Renaissance marked the birth of observer and spectator consciousness taking place. Shakespeare’s psychological theatre became a place where audiences were able to measure their own motives and actions against what they saw performed on stage. This is perhaps why alchemy was so popular during the Renaissance since these progressive attitudes made space for the exploration of new freedoms in consciousness.
Having performed, directed and researched Shakespeare over many years, I am well-aware there are a number of contentions regarding the relevance of
The Renaissance served as paradigmatic turning point in time where the gap between heaven and earth was widening, unmasking a new becoming space for human consciousness to occupy. It became a time of accentuating polarities that philosophers attempted to bridge through metaphysical practices. By definition Renaissance means rebirth of the antiquities including metaphysics shaped in part through the genius words of Shakespeare and other extraordinary artists and philosophers of his time. It marked a turning-point in time where materialism, colonial expansionism, incipient capitalism, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution were establishing themselves. The knock-on effect of these changes was this widening gap between spirit and matter, and with this an existential imbalance of potentials and problems, increasingly obvious many years later to modernists like Artaud in the 1800s. Nevertheless, what Artaud experienced as a disconcerting evolutionary shift, that often played out in his own tendency towards a nihilistic and schizophrenic perspective of life, was what fired his “call to action” towards promoting new art of theatre that Shakespeare unwittingly contributed too. Artaud’s vision for alchemical theatre, under the auspices of theatre of cruelty, demanded not only enlightened actors, but enlightened audiences, indeed an enlightened society. And so this paradigmatic shift towards a metaphysically conscious theatre was what Artaud hoped would constitute a ‘living’ opus for the world.
All true alchemists know that the alchemical symbol is a mirage as the theater is a mirage. And this perpetual allusion to the materials and the principle of theater found in almost all alchemical books should be understood as the expression of an identity (of which alchemists are extremely aware) existing between the world in which the characters, objects, images, and in a general way all that constitutes the virtual reality of the theatre develops, and the purely fictitious and illusory world in which the symbols of alchemy are evolved.50
Steiner acknowledged the suffering of modern experience of separation – humanity’s estrangement from nature and confrontation with nothingness – but saw in it the potential of human freedom. Steiner’s idea of knowledge as relationship starts with making friends with the world, recognizing things in their own right as having intrinsic value, giving them the opportunity to reveal themselves. Materialism, Steiner explained, is a denial of such a relationship, taking the world instead as an object to be mastered (Steiner, 1968, 1979b).53
Bearing in mind Artaud’s comments about materialism in The Theater and Its Double, he would no doubt have agreed with Steiner had he known about him. Although Artaud’s perspective of materialism can be seen to convey a bleak, one-sided view of life, it is worth considering that this psychological separation, ironically a legacy from the lead up to, and of, the Renaissance, can be seen as a necessary evolutionary stage in human consciousness and a conundrum it seems we must unravel today. As theatre alchemists, it is perhaps our task to plunge in to experience materialistic trends, or the condition Artaud referred to as societal calcination (descent into nigredo), whilst observing these trends with an active interest. As mentioned, the intention underpinning Artaud’s proposed [r]evolution, was for theatre and alchemy to conjoin in a dynamic marriage that would impact how the world worked in a more cohesive and enlightened way. Artaud envisioned that this would be where the ‘true’ revelation of theatre would be born that could become the vehicle of cultural and spiritual change that he dreamed: “… the essential drama, the one at the root of all the Great Mysteries, is associated
As touched upon previously, both Steiner’s and Chekhov’s theatre included cultivation of a Higher-Self that would inspire divine perception, and serve as an antidote to materialistic thinking. When referring to Chekhov’s Technique, it is worth recalling that Chekhov was a spiritual pupil of Steiner, and so Steiner’s esoteric ideas were infused into his personal ideology and theatre. In this way, Steiner and Chekhov together contributed to establishing new and future theatre by quite consciously challenging materialistic realism with their psycho-physical and psycho-spiritual methods. Steiner proposed ways of understanding and working with the double through practical and metaphysical consciousness that could potentially restore ‘magic’ in theatre – everything Artaud dreamed. What Artaud imagines, Steiner sets-down in his Speech and Drama course. It is worth recalling that Chekhov, a highly regarded professional actor of this time was in a position to bridge Steiner’s theatre centred on the creative word, and the world of everyday theatre. The development of Steiner’s theatre however, possibly because the creative word demanded a specific and rigorous training, and the fact that his lectures were transmitted in German with much later English publications, was not so well known. Sadly, because of World War ii, Chekhov had to go into exile and was unable to realize Steiner’s indications for the creative word in his Technique. Had he been able to so, this may have established the creative word with more certainty into the professional world of theatre that could have contributed to counteracting materialist trends.
Gnostic visionaries in varying ways, Artaud, Steiner, Jung, Chekhov, were all significant contributors to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century psychological revolution via their psychological, theatrical and spiritual modalities. It is interesting that even as far back as the early twentieth century, Artaud deeply repelled by materialism was writing harshly about theatre and its lack of imagination since this is what he saw made theatre vulnerable to the forces of materialism: “The theater as we practice it can therefore be reproached with a terrible lack of imagination.”55 The Theater and Its Double is his overwhelming plea for an alternative sort of theatre where exercising imagination can lift
Preoccupied with the idea of awakening to an ‘internal truth’ that Artaud deemed pivotal to the work of engaging with the “double” “intangible” “essential” elements of theatre, he advocates developing poetic consciousness. This is due to poetry voicing the mythic sentiments of the gods and goddesses, describing the archetypal divine order and, giving a voice to the double that is composed of these intangible, “virtual” realities. For Artaud, to ‘think’ poetically, is to practice the art of imagination. Artaud insists that because of its divine capabilities, imagination is the magic that can facilitate cultural change since it enables us to see things differently and dream up new possibilities. To Artaud, imagination was clearly the central principle in the renewal of a theatre that could awaken the senses to higher more poetical meta-physical realities – axiomatic to the tenets of historical alchemy, and now contemporary transpersonal alchemy. Artaud’s gnostic sensibilities reveal themselves when he challenges us to reposition our notion of being human by practicing alchemy, through the redemptive magic of imagination in a formative and practical way: “I propose to return through the theater to an idea of the physical knowledge of images …”56 Herein lies a key to his alchemical theatre: It is to be poetically imaginative and consist of pictorial or hieroglyphic symbolism that is embodied.57 Working with Chekhov’s Four Qualities of Movement exercises can support a lived experience of such embodied imaginations.
To explore how imagination can give rise to the practice of alchemical theatre, together with Artaud, Steiner and Chekhov’s writings, along with input from Renaissance and Hermetic ‘philosopher-artists’ to include Shakespeare who were also alchemist philosophers, I have, as I mentioned before, enlisted the contemporary depth psychological work of Jung as a path to Self-knowing that is steeped in alchemical lore. Hermeticism is a form of philosophical knowing that emerged from the alchemical work of the Hermes Trigmegistus, the ancient mythical author of writings now known as hermetics or hermeticism.
Artaud’s alchemical theatre is infused with Platonic archetypes as well as the principles of divinity and magic. It is also considerate of Aristotle’s Poetics. His vision is for a poetical theatre that he maintains is connected with primordial forms that impel us into activity, rather than encouraging us to sleep – his particular criticism of society and theatre of his time, was that it turned actors and audiences into somnambulists. Artaud stresses: “If our life lacks brimstone, Le., a constant magic, it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in considerations of their imagined form instead of being impelled by their force.”59 Artaud was a figure whose vision emulated the progressive aspect of his time, and because of this, lived painfully on a threshold of a changing consciousness. He declared humanity had lost its connection with those primordial creative forces and archetypes that he believed can make us more human. Although this separation can be seen to be the grist for evolving human consciousness, like many of us in the twentieth and twenty-first century, Artaud cruelly suffered its shadow, particularly one of its incipient qualities, called alienation.
As noted, there is plenty of written evidence that includes material quoted in this work, to suggest that during the Renaissance alchemy flourished. Contrary to Artaud’s previous indictments about Shakespeare, artists of the time subscribed to the notion that human beings could be transformed into divine beings through the alchemical perfection and command of nature – both outward nature to include trees, flowers, rivers, mountains, and inner
Now these conflicts which the Cosmos in turmoil offers us in a philosophically distorted and impure manner, alchemy offers us in all their rigorous intellectuality, since it permits us to attain once more to the sublime, but with drama … since it follows from the very principle of alchemy ….63
Discussing what were previously closely guarded esoteric secrets even in an elementary form, is an audacious task. Artaud, nevertheless fearful of the creeping forces of materialism, like Jung, Steiner and Chekhov, decided he should share what he knew of metaphysics and introduce it in the theatre, in order to infuse it with the power to do the great transformational work he believed was necessary to restore our humanity. Although Artaud’s “time-bomb” ideas can sometimes seem contradictory and impassioned in their visionary complexity, it is fair to say that they have the powerful compulsion to direct us to new ways of seeing things, towards training ‘future’ actors, and evolving future theatre that can influence culture. Through the practice of alchemical theatre, alchemical actors can participate in Sophia’s great work to refine the world. Through the practice of alchemy, what is becoming clear, is that our task is to digest or transmute ‘evil’ and unredeemed subjective shadow material, to purify and objectify it, through rigorous practices that will connect us with divine archetypes. In our alchemical practice, our own transmutation and that of the ensemble with which we work, becomes the substance that we offer to our audiences in performance – it motives and shines through our work, altering ourselves, and them. It is worth recalling, that Artaud was invested in the hope that the great work could counteract, indeed challenge, and redeem, increasing pathological materialism, and consequent spiritual alienation. His alchemical theatre was to become the laboratory where all this would take place, its ultimate aim a divinely inspired and conscious culture – where life and art meld in a spiritually truthful and practical way.
Since alchemical theatre is a new form of theatre and, a new form of alchemy, it calls for renewed vision, renewed action. Artaud stringently informs us: “Here is what is really going to happen. It is simply a matter of changing the point of departure of artistic creation and of overturning the customary laws of the theater.”67 Artaud’s theatre becomes alchemical through its metaphysical practices meaning that new theatre practice becomes an amalgam of disciplines. From Artaud’s indications in, ‘The Alchemical Theater’ there should be no differentiation between performing theatre and undertaking alchemical transformational practice since they are one and the same. Accordingly, performing theatre alchemy becomes a metaphysical project for the actor. However, Artaud’s legacy consists of a broad-stroke outline for an alchemical theatre that calls for our further work. In this work my attempt has been to bring order into
This work does not seek to be authoritative. Rather it presents as a series of unfolding imaginations calling for further imaginings by future alchemical actors. Analogous to Artaud’s own manifesto, it admits it is incomplete and
Fired-up by Artaud’s manifesto, let us proceed on through the opus to participate in alchemical mysteries. The first Imaginatio is aligned to the earth element and is experienced as the nigredo, or blackening stage in alchemy. Imagining our way into elements that compose Artaud’s alchemical theatre it is anticipated that our preconceived ideas about ourselves as actors and our relationship to the art of theatre are challenged. The nigredo constitutes the first step of this opus where we take a good look at ourselves and compare our current ways of thinking. Notably, although we will journey through the Imaginatios in a sequential way, the work itself is of a circulatory nature, and so as you imagine into this work, elements may oscillate, making for overlaps in its progress – fire might permeate water, air into water, earth into fire, and so on.
The second Imaginatio gives rise to the watery fluid aspect of the work that can be likened in alchemy to the Albedo stage. At this stage we are introduced to the alchemical imagination and its principles that compose the work of alchemy. Having been through the experience of the nigredo, where existing ideas and outmoded ways-of-being have been replaced by new ideas, entry into imaginal poetic consciousness with dawning acknowledgment of the Self is consolidated with the beginnings of a rebirth in consciousness. In alchemy, this constitutes the whitening or silvering, cleansing or purification stage of the work.
The fourth Imaginatio is called the Rubedo or ‘essence of fire’ and heralds the final golden stage. This is the stage of realizing the Self within the context of this opus, where questions asked at the beginning, are now understood. As example of an alchemical drama we will explore Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Prospero, the main protagonist, who embarks upon his own alchemical experiment, becomes the locus through which all the other characters in the play come to life, and undergo lesser and greater trials, before they are ‘refined’ in the tempestuous laboratory of his island.
The fifth final Imaginatio of our opus is called the quintessence where chaotic elements – earth, water, air and fire, become reconciled in the dance of the elements, to produce alchemical gold, a culmination of all our hard work.
Nicoll, Charles, The Chemical Theatre, p. 147–148.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Integration of the Personality, transl. Stanley Dell, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co, Ltd, London, 1948, p. 302.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Integration of the Personality, p. 48.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, transl. R.F.C Hull, cw 13, Bollingen Series xx, Princeton UP, 1967, p. 24.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, p. 124.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, p. 23.
Chekhov, Michael, On the Technique of Acting, Harper Collins, New York, 1991, p. xxxv–xxxvii.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Integration of the Personality, p. 153.
Chekhov, Michael, On the Technique of Acting, 1991, p. 44.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2000, p. xxviii.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2000, p. 8.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2000, p. 10.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2000, p. 11.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2000, p. 11.
Langman, Dawn, The Art of Speech Body – Soul – Spirit – Word: A Practical and Spiritual Guide, Temple Lodge Publishing, 2014.
Langman, Dawn, The Art of Speech Body – Soul – Spirit – Word, p. 35. See also p. 33–44.
Stevens, Anthony, On Jung, Routledge, London and New York, 1990, p. 41.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 135.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 50.
Sontag, Susan, Under the Sign of Saturn, Vintage Books, New York, 1981. From her essay, ‘Approaching Artaud’. Accessed 13/08/2016, p. 40.
Shakespeare, William, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Alexander Text, Harper Collins, Glasgow, 2006. Act 3 sc. i.
Marlon, Stanton, The Black Sun: Alchemy and Art of Darkness, Texas A & M UP, College Station, 2005, p. 83.
Shakespeare, William, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Act 3 sc. i.
Shakespeare, William, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Act 3 sc. i.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 50.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 50.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 108.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 123.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 46–47.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies. See part 1 section 3 for Jung’s discussion on the Tao.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 110.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 60.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 84.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 47.
Chekhov, Michael, To the Actor, 2002. See commentary by Andrei Malaev-Babel, p. 208.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 115.
Steiner, Rudolf, Speech and Drama, 1960, transl. Mary Adams, Anthroposophical Publishing Co. London.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 44.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 79.
Sontag, Susan, Under the Sign of Saturn, Vintage Books, New York, 1981. See her essay, ‘Approaching Artaud’.
Sontag, Susan, Under the Sign of Saturn. p. 51.
Sontag, Susan, Under the Sign of Saturn, p. 52.
Sontag, Susan, Under the Sign of Saturn, p. 58.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, p. 205.
See Peter Dawkins book referenced in the bibliography for more information.
Cobb, Noel, Prospero’s Island: The Secret Alchemy at the Heart of the Tempest, Coventure, London, 1984, p. 13–15.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 77.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 76.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 48.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 76.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 83.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 83.
Anderson, Neil, Rudolf Steiner’s Art of Acting: an introduction, Performance and Mindfulness 2(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.5920/pam.571
Accessed 6/06/2019.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 51.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 116.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 80.
For further elucidation see Alchemy & Alchemists, John Read, FRC, Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2013 p. 6. Pictorial symbolism is a term used in Rosicrucian literature that is alchemical in its foundation.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 8.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 8.
Mebane, John, S, Renaissance Magic & the Return of the Golden Age: The Occult Tradition & Marlowe, Jonson & Shakespeare, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1989, p. 1.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 9.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 66.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 51.
Harpur, Patrick, The Philosophers’ Secret Fire, p. 209.
Nicoll, Charles, The Chemical Theatre, p. 163–164.
Hoeller, Stephan, A. 1982, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, A Quest Book, The Theosophical Publishing House, Illinois, p. 70.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double, p. 110.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, p. 278.
Steiner, Rudolf, Imagination: Enhancing the Powers of Thinking, transl. Matthew Barton, Rudolf Steiner Press, Forest Row, 2019, p. 76.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, p. 278.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Integration of the Personality, p. 221.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double p. 40–41.
Artaud, Antonin, The Theater and Its Double p. 114.