Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu
Atelier De Création Radiophonique



1. Générique 11:59
   Interviewer – Bernard Noë,
   
2. Autour de "Pour en finir... 14:27
3. Présentation de Roger Vitrac 4:01
   voix de Roger Vitrac
4. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (1947) 1:13
5. J'ai appris hier... 10:10
   voix de Antonin Artaud
6. Tutuguri 4:11
   voix de Maria Casares
7. La recherche de la fécalité 7:34
   voix de Roger Blin.
8. La question se pose de.. 7:46
   voix de Paule Thévenin
9. Conclusion 10:56
   voix de Antonin Artuad

Revue de presse (Janvier, Février 1948), Radio 1948


1. Autour de "Pour en finir 2:05
   
2. Notes, fragments 8:39
3. Radio 48 24:34
   Interviewee – Marcel Besançon, Maurice Clavel Interviewer – Paul Guimard voix – Alain Jouffroy, François Billetdoux, Jean Bollery

Monsieur van Gogh, vous délirez (Van Gogh, Le suicidé de la Société)


1. Générique 1:48
   
2. Aliénation et magie noire7:27
   voix de Antonin Artaud
3. Van Gogh (Introduction) 14:00
   voix de Alain Cuny
   
4. Le suicidé de la société 30:58
   
   
5. Le suicidé de la société 25:42
   (Suite)
6. Post scriptum 11:07
   (Bis)
   
7. Post scriptum 2:41
   (Ter)
   
8. Les malades et les médecins (1946) 5:51
   voix de Antonin Artaud
   
9. Lettre de van Gogh a son frère Théo (Extraits) 13:11
   voix de Corneille
   

1. Antonin Artaud [01 - l'homme] 55:03
   
2. Antonin Artaud [02 - le texte] 56:22
   

A devil of a snag"- the story of a banned broadcast

Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu, a work for radio by Antonin Artaud, recorded in several sessions in the broadcasting studios of the Radiodiffusion française, rue François-1er, Paris, between November 22-29, 1947, and immediately banned from the air, was to become as legendary as the famous conference he gave earlier that year at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier, titled, Histoire vécue d’Artaud-Mômo (January 13, 1947, 9 pm).

It was the controversy surrounding this conference a few months earlier, and the rumours (including certain articles in the press) already in circulation on the broadcast in production, which in all likelihood attracted the attention of the Director-General of the Radio to the point that he asked for the recording. He banned the transmission immediately, the eve of the day it was scheduled to be on air, Monday, February 2, 1948, at 10.45 pm, as part of the series, titled, La Voix des Poétes, in which Artaud had been invited to participate by the director of dramatic and literary programmes, Fernand Pouey. The latter, however, gained recourse to a committee of personalities, including Georges Altman, Jean-Louis Barrault, René Clair, Jean Cocteau, Max-Pol Fouchet, Paul Guth, the Reverend Father Laval, Pierre Herbart, Louis Jouvet, Pierre Laroche, Maurice Nadeau, Jean Paulhan, Raymond Queneau, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Roger Vitrac, who were to listen to the recording on February 5, 1948 in a studio in the rue François-1er unit. In the face of opposition, the Director-General evaded the issue by claiming he did not feel duty-bound by their favourable verdict. He maintained the ban and Fernand Pouey resigned.

By Artaud's request, a second private transmission of the broadcast was organised by Fernand Pouey, before he definitively left his post, for a certain number of people who were absent on February 5. It took place on Monday, February 23, 1948 in a disused cinema, dependent on the Radio, the Washington (curiously enough, this is also the name of the boat that would bring him back from Ireland in September 1937), rue Washington. At the conclusion of this session, which brought a new success for Artaud, his friends Marthe Robert and Arthur Adamov were to express certain reservations - which appeared to strike a sensitive note with Artaud, in a letter he addressed to Paule Thé venin on February 24:

The programme itself is composed of a set of texts that Antonin Artuad conceived for the event, dictated to a secretary placed at his disposition by the Radiodiffusion, in November 1947. The montage can be broken down in the following way:

1. opening text
2. sound effects which fade into the text performed by Maria Casarés
3. the dance of the Tutuguri, text
4. sound effects (xylophones)
5. La recherche de la fécalité (performed by Roger Blin)
6. sound effects, beating and exchanges between Roger Blin and 1
7. La question se pose de (text performed by Paule Thévenin)
8. sound effects and my cry in the stairwell
9. conclusion, text
10. final sound effects ²

In his letter of protest to Wladimir Porché, director of the Radiodiffusion, reproduced by Paule Thévenin in the "Dossier de Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu" in the thirteenth volume of the Complete Works of Artaud, published by Gallimard, Artaud wrote:

We can refer to the extensive aforementioned notes and notably to a number of letters Artaud addressed to the various protagonists in this affair, to Fernand Pouey in particular, who put his position in the balance and "used it to tip the scales."

The script of the transmission was published in April 1948 by K éditeur, a short time after the death of Artaud on March 4, 1948. Before its republication, in an extended version with supplementary material including the letters and press articles, in the Oeuvres complétes, a relatively poorly printed pirate edition was available in several Parisian bookshops on the Left Bank during the summer of 1973-proof of the interest aroused by this text. This time we are releasing the integral recording of the broadcast which produced, in Artaud's own words, "a devil of a snag." ⁴

The ban of this work was the last great deception wreaked upon Artaud, who considered it "as at last a first rendering of the theatre of cruelty."

1 Oeuvres completes, XIII, Paris, Gallimard, 1974, pp. 146 -147. For further information on Artaud and the theatre in general, notably the manifesto of the theatre of cruelty, refer to Le théâtre et son double. ¹ was translated in works from the final period by Antonin Artaud. Edited and translated by Clayton Eshleman with Bernard Bador (Boston: Exact Change, 1995).

2 Extract from a letter to Fernand Pouey, January 16, 1948, in Artaud, op. cit., pp. 126 - 127.