A Spurt Of Blood

We read Artaud’s play...

Q - What was your initial response to this?

The script was a little confusing and difficult to put together initially, however Sarah Goodall explained that Artaud was on a lot of drugs whilst writing some of his plays with  'A Spurt Of Blood' being one of them. With that said, it made it a little easier to understand, due to him being under the influence of drugs. I then put myself in his shoes to try and understand what he felt, what he saw and ultimately his use of words which led to his own interpretation of the play.  I thought the play involved violence, sex and lust. 

Q - What did you think it was about?

The scene opens with The Young Man and Young Girl who clearly seem to be in love, they continuously repeat the lines " I love you and revert thing is beautiful" I felt that the Young Girl loved the Young Man more than he did her.  

The plays reference to sex can be demonstrated from the the Wet Nurse, the Young Girls mother, when she refers to both characters having sex as it being "incest". 

I thought it was about a young man and a young girl that had a relationship that wasn't quite what they both wanted it to be. The play made sexual references throughout including descriptions about 'breast' and descriptions like "with the sigh of one having an orgasm".  

Q - How were you able to relate the Artaudian ideas of theatre to his own work?

I tried to relate to the Artaudian ideas by focusing on his way of theatre and by fixing my mind, emotions and physicality to the same mindset as Artaud's.
We formed groups and created a version using text then a non verbal piece considering:

Using total theatre:

Lights

Music

Actor relationship

Symbols

Assault the audience's senses

What section did you recreate how?

My group and I recreated the sex scene. By doing that we used no lights ( a pitch black room) and used a genre of music you would normally find in a 'techno club' and used the flashlights on our phones to shine at the audience and wave around the room so thst the audience could have a fast flash of the scene we recreated

Why?

We did that scene because it was probably the most shocking text of the script and it we thought it would get the response from the audience that we wanted, which was to scare and shock the audience.

As an actor how were you challenged to perform?

The bit that was most challenging for me as an actor was not using words to shock the audience and trying to shock the audience without them clearly seeing the recreated scene.

As an audience member how did the pieces make you feel? Were your senses assaulted?

Most of the performances were in the dark so that automatically had me on edge because not only could we not hear what was going to happen we couldn't see what was going to happen and the fact that the aim of the recreated scenes were to shock made it more assaulting. 

The Spurt of Blood TRANSLATED BY RUBY COHN

CHARACTERS
A YOUNG MAN
A WET-NURSE
A YOUNG GIRL
A PRIEST
A KNIGHT
A COBBLER
A BEADLE
A PEDDLER
A BAWD
A HUGE VOICE
A JUDGE


YOUNG MAN: I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [With quavering voice] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [In a lower tone] I love you and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG GIRL: [In an even lower tone] You love me and everything is beautiful.
YOUNG MAN: [Leaving her abruptly] I love you. [Silence] Face me.
YOUNG GIRL: [As before standing opposite him] There.
YOUNG MAN: [In an exalted high-pitched voicej I love you. I am great, I am lucid, I am full, I am dense.
YOUNG GIRL: [In the same high-pitched voice] We love each other.
YOUNG MAN: We are intense. Ah, how beautifully the world is built.
[Silence. There is a noise as if an immense wheel were turning and moving the air. A hurricane separates them. At the same time, two Stars are seen colliding and from them fall a series of legs of living flesh with feet, hands, scalps, masks, colonnades, porticos, temples, alembics, falling more and more slowly, as if falling in a vacuum: then three scorpions one after another and finally a frog and a beetle which come to rest with desperate slowness, nauseating slowness]
YOUNG MAN: [Crying with all his strength] The sky has gone mad.
[He looks at the sky] Let's hurry away from here. 
[He pushes the Young Girl before him]

[Enter a medieval Knight in gigantic armor, followed by a Wet-Nurse holding her breasts in her hands and puffing because her breasts are swollen]
KNIGHT: Let go of your tits. Give me my papers.
WET-NURSE: [Screaming in high-pitch] Ah! Ah! Ah!
KNIGHT: Damn, what's the matter with you?
WET-NURSE: Our daughter, there, with him.
KNIGHT: Quiet, there's no girl there.
WET-NURSE: I'm telling you that they're screwing.
KNIGHT: What the Hell do I care if they're screwing?
WET-NURSE: Incest.
KNIGHT: Midwife.
WET-NURSE: [Plunging her hands deep into her pockers which are as big as her breasts] Pimp. 
[She throws his papers at him]
KNIGHT: Let me eat.

[The Wet-Nurse rushes out] [He gets up and from each paper he takes a huge hunk of Swiss cheese. Suddenly he coughs and chokes]
KNIGHT: [With full mouth] Ehp. Ehp. Show me your breasts. Show me your breasts. Where did she go?
[He runs out] [The Young Man comes back]
YOUNG MAN: I saw, I knew, I understood. Here on a public street, the priest, the cobbler, the peddler the entrance to the church, the red light of the brothel, the scales of justice. I can't stand it any longer!

[Like shadows, a Priest, a Cobbler, a Beadle, a Bawd, a Judge, a Peddler, arrive on stage]
YOUNG MAN: I've lost her: give her back to me.
ALL: [In different tones] Who, who, who, who.
YOUNG MAN: My wife.
BEADLE: [Very fat] Your wife, you're kidding!
YOUNG MAN: Kidding! Maybe she's yours!
BEADLE: [Tapping his forehead] Maybe she is.

[He runs out] [The Priest Ieaves the group and puts his arm around the neck of the Young Man]
PRIEST: [As if confessing someone.] To what part of your body do you refer most often?
YOUNG MAN: To God. 
[Confused by the reply the Priest immediately shifts to a Swiss accent]
PRIEST: [In Swiss accent] But that isn't done any more. We no longer hear through that ear. You have to ask that of volcanoes and earthquakes. We wallow in the little obscenities of man in the confession-box. That's life.
YOUNG MAN: [Much impressed] Ah that's life! Then everything is shot to hell.
PRIEST: [Still with Swiss accent] Of course.

[At this moment night suddenly falls on stage. The earth quakes. There is furious thunder and zig-zags of lightning in every direction through the zig-zags all the characters can be seen running around bumping into each other and falling then getting up and running about like crazy. Then an enormous hand seizes the Bawd by her hair, which bursts into flame and grows huge before our eyes]
HUGE VOICE: Bitch, look at your body!

[The Bawd's body is seen to be absolutely naked and hideous beneath her blouse and skirt, which become transparent as glass]
BAWD: Leave me alone, God.

[She bites God in the wrist. An immense spurt of blood lacerates the Stage, and through the biggest fiash of lightning the Priest can be seen making the sign of the cross. When the lights go on again all the characters are dead, and their corpses lie all over the ground. Only the Young Man and the Bawd remain devouring each other with their eyes. The Bawd falls into the Young Man's arms]
BAWD: [With the sigh of one having an orgasm] Tell me how it happened to you.

[The Young Man hides his head in his hands. The Wet-nurse comes back carrying the Young Girl under her arm like a bundle. The young Girl is dead. The Bawd drops her on the ground where she collapses and becomes flat as a pancake. The Wet-Nurse no longer has her breasts. Her chest is completely flat]
KNIGHT: [In a terrible voice] Where did you put them? Give me my Swiss cheese.
WET-NURSE: [Boldly and gaily] Here you are.

[She lifts up her dress. The Young Man wants to run away but he is frozen like a petrified puppet]
YOUNG MAN: [As if suspended in the air and with the voice of a ventriloquist] Don't hurt Mommy!
KNIGHT: She-devil!

[He hides his face in horror. A multitude of scorpions crawl out from beneath the Wet-Nurse's dress and swarm between her legs. Her vagina swells up splits and becomes transparent and glistening like a sun. The Young Man and Bawd run off as though lobotomized]
YOUNG GIRL: [Getting up dazed] The virgin! Ah that's what he was looking for.