He forgot about his conference, the theatre, his ideas, Dr. Allendy sitting there, the public, the young students, his wife, professors, and directors. His face was contorted with anguish, one could see the perspiration dampening his hair. His eyes dilated, his muscles became cramped, his fingers struggled to retain their flexibility. He made one feel the parched and burning throat, the pains, the fever, the fire in the guts. He was in agony. He was screaming. He was delirious. He was enacting his own death, his own crucifixion. At first people gasped. And then they began to laugh. Everyone was laughing! They hissed. Then, one by one, they began to leave, noisily, talking, protesting. They banged the door as they left. (…) More jeering. But Artaud went on, until the last gasp. And stayed on the floor. (…) He was in anger: “They want to hear an objective lecture on ‘The Theater and the Plague’ and I want to give them the very experience, the very plague, to be terrified and wake up. wake them up. They don’t understand that they are dead. Their death is total, like deafness, blindness. It is the agony that I have shown. Mine yes, and that of all those who live.”

On Abril 2020, during the mandatory confinement, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the theaters are empty. John Romão and Salomé Lamas direct the reenactement of the conference “The Theater and the Plague” by Antonin Artaud in 5 different empty theatres, with 5 different actors, proposing a geographical expansion of the “virus”.