The influence of Antonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty on selected British plays after 1945

This study has aimed to analyze the influence of Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty on selected British plays- Bond's Saved (1965) and Lear (1971); McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1966); Kane's Blasted (1995)- and Ionesco's The Lesson. Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty and Nineties' In-Yer-Face Theatre brought a new understanding to British Drama. In nineties, the playwrights wrote plays which were full of violence and cruelty. In these plays, they broke all taboos and used the most disgusting and shocking scenes. Influenced by Artaud's theatre, playwrights like Sarah Kane, Edward Bond, McDonagh wrote plays to show cruelty, hopelessness and isolation of humanity. Eugene Ionesco, as a representative of absurd drama, used violence with his unusual technique in his plays.