Jhin & The Theater of Cruelty
Shen's father, Lord Kusho said "Good and evil are not truths. They are born from men and each sees the shades differently."
So what does Jhin believe in?
"I am avant-garde - you are stuck in the past." -
Much of the avant-garde theater developed in France from 1914-1939 can be seen as a revolt against tradition.
"The Noxian invasion should be a wake-up call. We need more elaborate productions."-
Deeply affected by the events of World War I, the artists of the movement felt increasing skepticism of the existing societal structures that had allowed for global warfare.
"My theater is the mind."-
In his writings on the Theater of Cruelty, Artaud points to both “theater” and “cruelty” that are separate from their colloquial meanings. For Artaud, theater does not merely refer to a staged performance before a passive audience. The theater is a practice, which “wakes us up. Nerves and heart,” and through which we experience, “immediate violent action,” that “inspires us with the fiery magnetism of its images and acts upon us like a spiritual therapeutics whose touch can never be forgotten.”
At that moment, a town guard stumbled from the entrance, his face pale and hollow. "Her flesh, it was... it was... " he said. He took a few steps, then collapsed to the ground in shock. "He saw it. He saw the flower!" Against the far wall, the tavern's owner laughed. Then he began weeping - his face painted by madness. These were not people who would forget seeing Khada Jhin's work. -Golden Excellence, Jhin's color story
"Art requires a certain cruelty." -
According to scholar Nathan Gorelick, “Cruelty is, more profoundly, the unrelenting agitation of a life that has become unnecessary, lazy, or removed from a compelling force. The Theater of Cruelty gives expression to everything that is ‘crime, love, war, or madness’ in order to ‘unforgettably root within us the ideas of perpetual conflict, a spasm in which life is continually lacerated, in which everything in creation rises up and asserts itself against our appointed rank.’
"My genius will be understood - eventually." -
Artaud felt that the focus of theater in the west had become far too narrow—primarily examining the psychological suffering of individuals or the societal struggles of specific groups of people. He wanted to delve into the aspects of the subconscious that he believed were often the root cause of human being’s mistreatment of one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_Cruelty
Could it be that Jhin believes in a twisted form of the Artaud's Theater of Cruelty? And if so, was it drawn from other artists and philosophers of his time, or did he devise it himself? And if not, did the idea at least contribute to some of his development?
