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CAMUS AND THE THEATRE OF TERROR: ARTAUDIAN DRAMATURGY AND SETTLER SOCIETY IN THE WORKS OF ALBERT CAMUS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL
CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Queen's University, Kingston (Canada) E-mail: cam_churchill@hotmail.com
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Abstract

This essay examines Albert Camus's considerable debt to Antonin Artaud. Camus was not only a dramatist, but he also employed dramaturgical techniques in his more famous fiction and essays. In this regard, Artaud's ideas on social reconstitution through aesthetic terror were crucial to the development of many of Camus's most famous works, written both in Algeria and in France before and after World War II. This article considers the ways in which aesthetic–political techniques adapted from Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty were employed to challenge fascism in Algeria and France, by simultaneously summoning Algerian settler myths of exile, destitution and regeneration. Camus's considerable sophistication in the use of these techniques, and the colonial context in which they were initially applied, have often been missed by scholars and critics who have sought to unproblematically situate his works within debates about the Cold War and more recently the “War against Terror”.

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Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 93 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Finter, Helga, “Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre: The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty”, Drama Review 41/4 (Winter 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim.

2 See Cruickshank, John, Camus and the Literature of Revolt (Oxford University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; O'Brien, Conor Cruise, Camus (Fontana/Collins, 1970)Google Scholar; Freeman, E., The Theatre of Albert Camus: A Critical Study (Methuen, 1971)Google Scholar; Lottman, Herbert, Albert Camus, a Biography (Doubleday and Company Inc., 1979)Google Scholar; Dine, Philip, Images of the Algerian War: French Fiction and Film, 1954–1992 (Clarendon Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Dunwoodie, Peter, Writing French Algeria (Clarendon Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; LeSueur, James, Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria (University of Nebraska Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Haddour, Azzedine, Colonial Myths: History and Narrative (Manchester University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Gosnell, Stephen, The Politics of Frenchness in Colonial Algeria, 1930–1954 (University of Rochester Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Lorcin, Patricia, “Recovering Colonial Algeria's Latin Past”, French Historical Studies 25/2 (Spring 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carroll, David, Albert Camus, the Algerian: Colonialism, Terrorism, Justice (Columbia University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Djemaï, Abdelkader, Camus à Oran (Editions Michalon, 1995)Google Scholar; Todd, Olivier, Camus, une vie (Editions Gallimard, 1996)Google Scholar; Chaulet-Achour, Christiane, Albert Camus, Alger: “L'Etranger” et autres récits (Éditions Séguier, 1998)Google Scholar.

3 See Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, Lettres de prison (SNED, 1977); Assia Djebar, Le Blanc de l'Algérie: Récit (A. Michel, 1995); Djemaï, Camus à Oran; Mohammed Lakhdar Maougal, The Algerian Destiny of Albert Camus (Academica, 2006).

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5 In Camus, Albert, Neither Victims nor Executioners (World Without War Publications, 1972)Google Scholar. Needless to say, Camus's work was appropriated by a few of the very targets of Pickus's ire as well.

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10 James LeSueur's Uncivil War, 87, also presents Camus as “being out of step with his own time”.

11 Elshtain notes in passing Camus's ability to immerse the audience in the horrors of “despicable cruelty.” Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War against Terror: The Burdern of American Power in a Violent World (Basic Books, 2004), 12. David Carroll's recent study of Camus concludes with the fantasy that were “the Pentagon, the President, and all the President's men”, to read and reflect on Camus's writing, they might be moved to what he argues is a more ethical position. Carroll, Albert Camus, 184.

12 Berman, Paul, Terror and Liberalism (W. W. Norton & Co, 2003), 208Google Scholar. There are French parallels too in this summoning of Camus for the “War against Terror”. See Albert Camus, Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi, Antoine Garapon and Denis Salas, Réflexions sur le terrorisme (Nicolas Philippe, 2002) 7.

13 Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 185.

14 Ibid., 29.

15 Camus, The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (Vintage, 1992); Camus, Essais (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1965), 26. In Camus's critique of the nihilism of the surrealists, he quotes Artaud's scathing judgement of them as the “Amiels of the Revolution.” Camus, The Rebel, 96.

16 Camus, The Rebel, 273.

17 Ibid., 274, 275.

18 Ibid.

19 Camus, Notebooks 1942–1951, trans. Justin O'Brien (Knopf, 1965), 112–3.

20 Camus, Théâtre, récits, nouvelles (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1963), 1707.

21 Camus, Théâtre, 1708–9. Also see idem, The Rebel, 269, 275.

22 Camus, Notebooks 1942–1951, 137.

23 Camus, Essais, 1427. See also Cruickshank, Camus and the Literature of Revolt, 55.

24 Freeman, The Theatre of Albert Camus, 29.

25 Destitution has a number of meanings, but in terms of Camus's use of it, it refers to the deprivation of survival, an important component of works that invoke and explore both the absurd and revolt.

26 Quilliot, Roger, The Sea and Prisons: A Commentary on the Life and Thought of Albert Camus (University of Alabama Press, 1970), 66Google Scholar; Davis, Colin, “Violence and Ethics in Camus”, in Hughes, Edward J., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Camus (Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

27 Camus, Notebooks 1942–1951, 94; Grenier observes that Camus was constant in his search for eternal values. Grenier, Jean, Albert Camus (Souvenirs) (Gallimard, 1968), 67Google Scholar.

28 Grenier, Albert Camus, 170.

29 Camus, Essais, 1918–9. European settlers were not only a collectivity to be shaped by him, but a collectivity into which he ambivalently imagined himself disappearing. In his preface for Albert Memmi's Statue de sel, Camus writes, “a writer defines himself by an incapacity, as well as a nostalgia, to melt into the anonymity of a class or a race”. Albert Memmi, La Statue de sel (Gallimard, 1966), 9.

30 Randau wrote, “there must be a North African literature because a people which has its own life must also have its own language and literature”. As quoted in Prochaska,, “History as Literature, Literature as History”, 703.

31 Lorcin, “Recovering Colonial Algeria's Latin Past”, 328–9. Dunwoodie, Writing French Algeria, passim; Chaulet-Achour, Albert Camus, Alger, 73.

32 In his manifesto for the Algérianiste aesthetic movement, Jean Pomier argued that artists performed a supplementary role to the colonial administration. Artists’ works were the cultural component to the colonial mise en valeur. Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer (CAOM) 75 Archives Privés d'Outre-Mer (APOM) 45 (fonds Arnaud-Randau).

33 For more on settler myths see Philip Dine, Images of the Algerian War: French Fiction and Film, 1954–1992 (Clarendon Press, 1994), esp. 150, 151.

34 CAOM 9 H 49.

35 On settler reaction see Samuel Kalman, “Parasites from all Civilizations: The Croix de Feu/Parti Social Français Confronts French Jewry, 1931–1939”, Historical Reflections 34/2 (Summer 2008), 46–65; Roy, Jules, Mémoires barbares (Albin Michel, 1989), 188–9Google Scholar.

36 Camus, Essais, 1321.

37 As quoted in Lottman, Albert Camus, 137.

38 Bousquet, François, Camus le méditerranéen, Camus l'ancien (Editions Naaman, 1977), 42–3Google Scholar; Mekhaled, Boucif, Chronique d'un massacre : 8 mai 1945, Sétif-Guelma-Kherrata (Paris: Syros, 1995), 30–31Google Scholar; Libyous, “L'Afrique et l'Italie”, L'Afrique Française 46/7 (July 1936), 410–14.

39 See Apter's thoughtful discussion on this subject in “Out of Character: Camus's French Algerian Subjects”, MLN 112/4 (1997), 510.

40 Camus, Essais, 1322.

41 Camus, Essais, 1322–3.

42 See Louis Bertrand, “Nietzsche et la Méditerranée”, Revue des Deux Mondes 25 (1 Jan. 1915).

43 Lorcin, “Recovering Colonial Algeria's Latin Past”, 328–9; Haddour, Colonial Myths; O'Brien, Camus.

44 Camus, Essais, 1323, 1324.

45 Originally published as “Un Manifeste d'intellectuels français pour la defense de l'Occident”, in Le Temps, 4 Oct. 1935, 2.

46 O'Brien, Camus, 12.

47 Camus, Théâtre, 1690.

48 Méditerranée Afrique du Nord, 1 (June 1939). For a discussion of Algerian theatre, see La Voix Indigène, 28 Jan. 1932; Ahmed Cheniki, Le Théâtre en Algérie: Histoire et enjeux (Édisud, 2002).

49 Interview in Demain, 24–30 Oct. 1957, from Camus, Essais, 1901.

50 According to Camus, Théâtre, 1724, “the theatre is quite rightly the highest of literary genres and in any case the most universal”. See also Christine Margerrison, “Camus and the Theatre”, in Hughes, The Cambridge Companion, 76.

51 Marie-Louise Audin, “Le Paradigme du théâtre dans Le Mythe de Sisyphe”, in Jacqueline Levi-Valensi, ed., Camus et le théâtre: Actes du Colloque tenu à Amiens du 31 mai au 2 juin 1988 (Imec Editions, 1992) 105.

52 Camus, Théâtre, 1690.

53 Camus, Théâtre, 1702; see also Camus, Essais, 1405. Albert Sonnenfeld, E. Freeman and Ilona Coombs are only some of the scholars who have noted the crucial influence of Artaud already in Camus's first collaborative play, “Révolte dans les Asturies”, written with the Théâtre du travail in 1936. Detailing all that Camus read of Artaud is difficult, if not impossible. Camus certainly read the essay collection Le Théâtre et son double and À la grande nuit ou le Bluff surréaliste, and there are telling signs that he also drew on Artaud's Héliogabale ou l'anarchiste couronné. Madeleine Valette-Fondo, “Camus et Artaud”, in Levi-Valensi, Camus et le théâtre, 100, 101.

54 Camus, Théâtre, 1710–11, as quoted in Ilona Coombs, Camus, homme de théâtre (Nizet, 1968), 48.

55 Sontag, Susan, “Artaud”, in Antonin Artaud, Selected Writings (University of California Press, 1988), xxxixGoogle Scholar.

56 Artaud, Antonin, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 4 (Gallimard, 1956), 64Google Scholar.

57 Sonnenfeld, Albert, “Albert Camus as Dramatist: The Sources of His Failure”, Tulane Drama Review 5/4 (June 1961), 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Ibid., 118. For Camus, “the decor is conceived to keep the spectator from defending themselves.” Coombs, Camus, 47. See also Valette-Fondo, “Camus et Artaud”, 93–101; and Ouadia, Karima, L'Inhumain dans le théâtre d'Albert Camus (Editions Manuscrit), 65Google Scholar.

59 Camus, Albert, Carnets mai 1935–février 1942 (Gallimard, 1962), 140Google Scholar.

60 Camus utilizes these Artaudian strategies at key moments in which he confronts the reader with the absurd in other works, such as Le Mythe de Sisyphe, where Camus explains the feeling of the absurd not by rational argument, but in a set piece in which the reader is invited to imagine watching the spectacle of a man speaking into a telephone, gesturing wildly and inhumanly.

61 Camus, Théâtre, 88.

62 Artaud, Oeuvres, 102–3.

63 Camus, Théâtre, 1742.

64 Artaud, Antonin, The Theatre and Its Double, trans. Caroline, Mary Edwards (Grove Press, 1958), 82Google Scholar.

65 Artaud, Oeuvres, 34.

66 Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double, 83.

67 Spreen, Constance, “Resisting the Plague: The French Reactionary Right and Artaud's Theater of Cruelty”, Modern Language Quarterly 64/1 (March 2003), 72–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Abdelfettah, Nedjma, “‘Science coloniale’ et modalités d'encadrement de l'immigration algérienne à Paris (1917–1952)”, Bulletin de l'Institut d'histoire du temps présent 83 (premier semester 2004), 108–27Google Scholar.

69 For Camus, the theatre was a place of truth, which revealed the staged dramas of real-life political administrations. Camus, Théâtre, 1723.

70 See also Horowitz, Louise, “Of Women and Arabs: Sexual and Racial Polarization in Camus”, Modern Language Studies 17/3 (Summer 1987), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rizzuto, Anthony, “Camus and a Society without Women”, Modern Language Studies 13/1 (Winter 1983), 5–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Camus, Théâtre, 87.

72 Freeman, The Theatre of Albert Camus, 86.

73 Quilliot, Roger, “Camus's Libertarian Socialism”, in Knapp, Bettina, ed., Critical Essays on Albert Camus (G. K. Hall, 1988), 38–9Google Scholar.

74 Freeman, The Theatre of Albert Camus, 47.

75 As quoted in Rosette C. Lamont, “Two Faces of Terrorism: Caligula and the Just Assassins”, in Knapp, Critical Essays on Albert Camus, 137; and Camus, Carnets 1935–1942, 43.

76 Artaud, Oeuvres, 39.

77 Camus, Notebooks 1942–1951, 5.

78 Lorcin, “Recovering Colonial Algeria's Latin Past.”

79 Kamel Kateb, Européens, “Indigènes” et Juifs en Algérie (1830–1962). Représentations et réalités des populations (INED, 2001), 49–68.

80 Roblès, Camus frère de soleil (Editions de Seuil, 1995), 43.

81 As quoted in Coombs, Camus, 108.

82 Cf. Djemaï, Camus à Oran. See also O'Brien, Camus, 47.

83 Camus's narrated performance almost perfectly echoes Artaud's famous 1933 lecture at the Sorbonne, famously recounted by Anaïs Nin. Artaud became increasingly erratic in his performance, before collapsing onstage, as he presented his ideas on, fittingly, “Le Théâtre et la peste.” All but a handful of members of the audience crowded out of the room, rather than reflect on what Artaud saw as their own corpse-like existence.

84 Quilliot, Roger, The Sea and Prisons: A Commentary on the Life and Thought of Albert Camus (English translation) (University of Alabama Press, 1970), 135Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., 137.

86 Camus, Théâtre, 1965–6.

87 In his analysis of Camus's Les Justes, Dominick LaCapra has explored this doubled signification between occupied France and colonial Algeria. LaCapra, History and Memory after Auschwitz.

88 Todd, Camus, une vie, 616.

89 CAOM 9 H 49.

90 John Erickson, “Albert Camus and North Africa: A Discourse of Exeriority”, in Knapp, Critical Essays, 81.

91 Camus, Théâtres, 1355.

92 Haddour, Colonial Myths.

93 Camus, Essais, 944.

94 See Haddour, Colonial Myths.

95 Camus, Notebooks 1942–1951, 23, 25.

96 Camus, Essais, 347.

97 Ibid., 322.

98 Ibid.

99 For a discussion of these tensions as they appear in Camus's writings on the War of Independence, see Maougal, The Algerian Destiny of Albert Camus, 225.

100 As quoted in O'Brien, Camus, 33.

101 From Hommage à Albert Camus (Gallimard, 1967), 193.

102 Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 133.