The theatre and its double le theatre et son double is a collection of essays by french poet and playwright antonin artaud it contains his most famous works on the theatre including his manifestos for a theatre of cruelty . 12 the theater and its double every real effigy has a shadow which is its double and art must falter and fail from the moment the sculptor believes he has liberated the kind of shadow whose very existence will destroy his repose like all magic cultures expressed by appropriate hieroglyphs. The theater and its double book read 134 reviews from the worlds largest community for readers. A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938 the theater and its double is the fullest statement of the ideas of antonin artaud we cannot go on prostituting the idea of the theater. A collection of manifestos originally published in 1938 the theater and its double is the fullest statement of the ideas of antonin artaud we cannot go on prostituting the idea of the theater the only value of which is in its excruciating magical relation to reality and danger he wrote he fought vigorously against an encroaching conventionalism he found anathema to the very concept of theater he sought to use theater to transcend writing to break through the language in