Nawzad Jaadan (from the source)
Friday 25 August 2023 / 19:29
The book “Madness in the Theater of Cruelty… A revolution against the dictatorship of the mind and a rebellion against cultural patterns” by the writer Nawzad Jaadan includes 3 chapters: “Reason and Rationality between Western and Arab Cultures”, “Insanity and Proving the Lost Identity”, and “The Presence of Madness in the Theater of Cruelty”. .
The writer dedicates his study to Antonin Artaud, who inspires us so far, and to every different madman who emerges like a lotus from the swamps, and blooms in spite of it all.
The problem of the study was crystallized in the following main question: The always link between madness in its pathological capacity and creativity, the extent of the impact of the irrational and its success in the theater of cruelty, and to what extent did the irrational contribute to creating a unique and different theatre?
The study aims to identify the extent to which creativity relates to personal behavior through Antonin Artaud’s theatrical experience, the mechanism of the influence of instinct and talent on creativity and its superiority over established foundations and concepts, and to clarify that the irrational alone cannot produce a work of art of creative value.
Jadan identifies the hypotheses of the study, that works of art are produced by employing the capabilities of the mind, but in a different direction, and that art is a reflection of the lived reality, the state of society, and the status of the artist is what conveys the reality of society.
Contrasting thinking
In the conclusion of this study issued by Dar Mashki for printing, publishing and distribution in Iraq, the author recommends a number of important issues, including reconsidering the concept of insanity in the current sense, and considering it a relative social and psychological phenomenon, and not a pathological phenomenon that requires the exclusion and marginalization of insane people from public life. Employing Artaud’s theories in Arab cinema and benefiting from them, especially that it relies on the language of the image and not on the word. psychological, because they confused it with the concept of responding to psychological and social stress.
It is mentioned that the creative artist is characterized by a different personality from the common people, who enjoys a high sensitivity towards the events around him, which makes him interact with them in a reciprocal relationship, and it is absurd to ask him to be like the rest of the people, because we kill his creativity and the spirit of creation in him, and we should encourage him instead Whoever calls him crazy, and respects his differences, no matter how extreme, life is extreme in all its forms.
Victory for the insane
Jadan points out that Artaud’s theater has a victory for all the madmen of the world at the expense of the dictatorship of the mind and theaters that are identified with a pure rational standpoint, explaining that researching the first rituals of our humanity leads us to the original anchors of art hidden within us, calling for benefiting from the experiences of unexplored theaters in the Arab world, Especially the theaters of Africa and East Asia, because of the aesthetics and theatrical poetics they contain that are unknown to us.
It is noteworthy that Nawzad Jaadan was born in Aleppo and resides in the Emirates. He holds a BA in Mass Communication from the University of Damascus, and a MA in Dramatic Literature from the Arab Academy in Denmark. He is a PhD student in theatrical literature at the same academy, and has been working in the Public Works Department in Sharjah since 2012.
He has published 5 collections of poetry, The Walls of the Last Seat Student, Songs of the Umbrella Seller, Very Happy, Pet Knives, and I Walk on My Hands. He also has a collection of short stories, “The Earthen Closet.” He also has several publications in theater, including, Trapezoidal Homeland, Absolute Heroism, And he slept in a sleepless night, and soon he will publish “Aghani Nasim” songs for children.
Jaadan has publications in the field of cinema, including Pioneers of Indian Cinema in two parts. He also works on translating literature. He has anthologies of international poetry, poetry anthologies from India and Pakistan, and Fingers of the Breeze. He also translated the novel Devdas, and he is the founder of the Poets and Artists Movement for a Different World, which It included a group of poets and artists from all over the world, and it won many Arab and international awards, including the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in the field of theater, first place in 2016.
