An Introduction to the Understanding of Theater from the perspective of Deleuze’s Schizoanlasysis

The philosophy of Gills Deleuze provides to us an exuberant critical method to look deeper into the field of theater, because of its unique mixture of psychoanalysis, socio-economical critique, and basic aesthetic notions. However, this is the very reason that makes this philosophy so hard to understand. He is one the few modern philosophers who have developed a new ontology. In this article, we have focused on one of his most valuable concepts, Schizoanalysis, and attempted to use it in the field of theater studies. In their book, Anti-Oedipus Gills Deleuze and Philix Guattari introduce Schizoanalysis as a substitute for psychoanalysis. Schizoanalysis supposes Desire as the ultimate force that moves and changes the world. It is a critical method because instead of searching for the meaning of the human activities, it focuses on the deeper underlying structures that shape our unconsciousness and construct our subjectivity. For them, the subject itself is a product of desire, so instead of seeing an artwork as a manifestation of one's desire, we can say that the artist himself/herself is the real manifestation of the artistic desire. In other words, by using their approach, we can investigate the unconscious flows of desire within an artwork; regard it as a process of production and comprehend its Impersonal aspects. One of the outcomes of following this method is to deter from transcendent convictions and reach an immanent critique. Instead of historical and social norms for defining the quality of a specific theater, we can study its inner connections and flows of desire in a universal context.In this research, firstly we have surveyed the philosophical roots of Schizoanalysis in the thoughts of Deleuze and then tried to utilize it in the field of theater studies. In doing so, we have come upon a unique understanding of the non-representative theater. The theater of cruelty presented by Antonin Artaud is an example. One of the main aspects of Schizoanalysis is the way it deals with the notion of death. Deleuze and Guattari believe that Death is experienced unconsciously every day, and it is the reason that our flows of desire change and shift. The theater is a field that we can reshape these flows of desire and push them to the extremes, so when we face the idea of death in the theater, we confront the forces and intensities that makes it a universal concept instead of a mere dying of a hero on the stage. In other words, what are experienced in theatrical performances are the natural forces of life and death, which are applied to us every day. However, on the stage, they can be experienced on an impersonal level. Schizoanalysis is a way to decomposition an artwork to its desiring-machines, comprehend the way its flows of desire work and then reassemble it as a desire-product that can be consumed by the audience. In this article, we have presented the philosophical base necessary for this process and discussed it in detail regarding theatrical experiences.