Word: Resuscitate

Resuscitate, v.

1. trans. To restore (a person) to life (physical or spiritual) or to consciousness.
2. To revive, renew, restore (a thing).
3. intr. To revive, to come to life again.

The word resuscitate really stood out for me when reading Artaud's The Theater And Its Double. From what I got from the article it would seem that Artaud believes that the masterpieces which define theater to be more or less dead, at least by way of applying them to modern day society. He says, "Masterpieces of the past are good for the past: they are not good for us" (74). Through his idea of "Theater of Cruelty" he seems to want to compeletely tear down the foundation of Aristotle's Poetics and start anew. And through this prossess, resuscitate or renew theater for today using his model of Poetics. He even goes so far as to describe all the elements that would go into this new theater such as spectacle, language, music, lighting, costumes, objects, actors, etc. All in all, Artuad's Theater of Cruelty seems like a very difficult production of theater.